Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The battle had just ended, from what Gyomei could hear. The screams and battle cries had come to an abrupt end and everyone cried out in joy in the battlefield. Dozens of slayers held on to life, and some warm feeling sprawled across his chest. Hope—but not for him, with his cut off leg and borrowed time ticking away with every drop of blood—for humanity.

He heard Tomioka cry besides Kamado, and further away various kakushi called out Shinazugawa’s name in relief. They still live on.

The world would live on, and humanity would no longer have to struggle through each night. It would be safe and quiet, able to leave people to truly thrive as the world slowly evolved and advanced.

“Do not use your valuable resources in me…”

If he had more time left, maybe he’d wonder what humanity would do with their newfound peace.

“It is too late for me, you would only end up… wasting them. Please… tend to the younger ones, it is my… last wish.”

A girl sniffled and cried his name. Her voice was familiar and guilty.

The kakushi and slayers that tended to him began crying. How sorrowful, he didn’t feel deserving of such emotion; he was just another blade broken in the battle and that was alright, in the end. He felt their hands grip his uniform and their tears fall almost endlessly, and he wanted to tell them, don’t cry for me, everything will be alright now. Still, he felt his energy leave his body and his last breaths grow weak.

Several small pairs of hands held his own. “Sensei?” one of the voices that haunted him asked, young and achingly familiar.

“Oh, it is you,” he whispered, almost too low to hear as his senses slowly faded into some comfortable numbness.

“Sensei!”

“We always wanted to apologize for that day!”

“You ended up hurt because of us, didn’t you?”

“We didn’t mean to disobey you!”

“We thought we had to protect you because you can’t see…”

“I tried to get weapons, from the garden outside…!”

“And I went to get someone for help!”

…

“If only… tomorrow had come…”

…

“Don’t apologize, sensei!”

“We all love you, that’s why we waited all this time for you.”

“I see… thank you.”

He no longer heard the crying, nor felt the desperation with which the people near him held on to his life. Still, he knew he was still alive, and with one last breath he smiled between the tears.

“Now let’s go, all of us, let’s go.”

The kakushi girl sniffled and cried, holding onto the stone pillar’s body with more desperation than the others. Her wails were heartbreaking and painful, tearing through with apologies that had gone unsaid for 9 years.

And now, when she’d finally found him, he had to die.

“I’m so sorry sensei… I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it that way, I really didn’t!”

Death was warm.

Death was warm in the way new beginnings were bright.

Bright as the sun, from what he’d heard before.

Quiet, warm and bright, nothingness held him like a blanket and he floated through nothingness comfortably without a thought in his final peace.

It had been like that for a long time, and although Gyomei did miss the people he'd lived with and fought with he couldn’t say he was discontent with the way death was.

Not that he could say it, either way. There was no sound in death. No sound, no touch, no taste and no smell. He wondered briefly if there was sight, before his mind turned to other things.

Sometimes he felt himself want to cry in that solitude, for those who lived and the others who died. Sometimes he felt himself wish to smile at kind memories of those he missed. In the formless void of death, that was all he could do. Think about everything, while being in nothing.

Until he was in something.

The first thing he could make out was that someone was holding him. The next thing was that either they were very big or he was very small. And then he felt something soft cover him. After that they passed him to somebody else and he heard a woman.

She sounded distant, as if everything was slowly coming back to him. She held him close and carefully, and nearby a man spoke softly to her.

“—’s beautiful, our baby…” the woman replied, choking back a sob.

“Such a healthy boy, I am sure he will grow up to be brave and strong, Inko.”

Gyomei groaned, forcing himself to move. But he didn’t sound like himself—the steady, grave and hoarse voice he'd gotten used to—instead like an infant; a baby. Was that what happened? Reincarnation? He was a Shinto Buddhist, and didn't particularly believe in the concept of reincarnation and samsara but… it seemed like what was most the most probable case.

“Oh our little Izuku, you're perfect baby,” the woman—Inko, his mother?—sobbed.

Izuku? Ah, that must've been the name they gave him then. That was it then, he was truly reborn. He was alive again, under another name, and most likely another time. He was still in Japan, or he was from a Japanese family at least, but he had no way to know how long had passed since the battle or if anyone he ever knew remained.

Had it been less than four years, and Tomioka and Shinazugawa still lived despite the mark? Was Uzui still alive, or had it been decades since then?

“He looks just like you, Inko,” his father(?) chuckled.

His mother laughed, “oh, but I'm sure he has your eyes, Hizashi.”

Oh, he had his eyes closed, didn't he? But then if he opened them, would he be able to see or not? Gyomei lived his entire life in darkness, well, all that he remembered of his life at least. He didn’t know what would be worse, the illusion of the sense that had always eluded his understanding or the entirely new perception of the world overloading his mind. It sounded—for lack of a better word—stupid when he said it like that, but he wasn’t sure…

He braced himself for disappointment and whatever sight was like and opened his eyes.

Everything showed itself to him.

It was the only way he could conceptualize it, from nothing to everything in an array of brand new feelings clouding his mind. That was it, the little thing that left him a step apart from everyone else. Eyesight; bright, incredible and overwhelmingly beautiful.

“I think your eyes suit him better Inko, don't worry about it.”

“Yeah… he seems to have taken your size instead, huh? 57 centimeters tall, I don't know how I managed.”

By the time they left the hospital, he was somewhat used to the new sense. He still found himself looking at anything that made sounds to see what it looked like; be it people, animals, water—heck, even the wind when he felt it, as embarrassing as that was. At least he had plausible deniability of technically being an infant, though he still would feel it for himself.

It had been two days from what he’d heard since he was born? Woke up? Came back to life? Whatever it was, it had been two days and now they were leaving the hospital. At the moment, they were carrying him out the hospital between large machines that moved on their own whenever they were not placed in an orderly manner.

They sound similar to cars, but quieter. Although this could very well be the future it is heavily disorienting, although I suppose simply being able to see makes it so.

They stopped in front of one of those machines, and his mother—it felt weird to think about it, Gyomei had spent most of his life without her after all—sat him facing another seat before going to sit at the front.

It was definitely a car, and he was certainly at least a few decades in the future. And as much as he wanted to turn and look out the window, his eyes began closing on their own and he fell asleep; babies do have to sleep a lot.

Fire.

It burned between rough patches of rubble and debris from the explosion, and every step stung through his skin despite the months of practice he'd spent over burning flames.

He attacked before the demon could, throwing his morningstar with hatred that seeped through prayers; hatred for the monster who went to kill the man who saved his life. The demon attacked back, thousands of pinpricks he stopped with his weapon.

He yelled the demon's name.

His comrades attacked.

The ground opened, and they fell.

One by one, they fell.

He heard the splitting of the younger ones’ skin and bones with a sickening squelch, falling to the ground with a wet thump and the stench of iron coating the air. They were like his sons.

And the girl he'd lost so many years ago alongside her sister died cold and alone, and he could only hope she had let her emotions free one last time and shown her soul out of the haori covering it.

And then the lovebirds, who gave him some sliver of hope that he could still love and things would end up alright. He heard their heart stop beating slowly, with every drop that fell a sad note that would end their love story.

All those whose names he didn’t know, offering themselves to turn the tide without giving value to their life as anything more than a human shield.

Death.

Cold, cruel and indiscriminate.

Takes the children, takes the lovers, takes the sad and broken ones and leaves pain behind.

Pain unlike anything ripping his leg apart.

And bliss unlike anything stopping his heart.

Inko shushed her baby as he woke up. The poor boy always woke up crying and wailing his fists after he slept. Hisashi walked into the room, looking at the clock that said in bright red numbers 4:56 am. and sighed.

“Crying again?” her husband asked, blowing a small flame at a candle he held in his hand. His white hair was disheveled, and his red eyes looked tired but caring towards them.

Inko sighed, rocking the crying newborn as she turned to the small light. “I’ve been thinking about asking Mitsuki for help, she knows more about taking care of babies than I do.”

“Yes, because three months of being a mother gives her all of the experience in the world.”

“Oh, shut up. Don’t you have to get ready for work?”

Hisashi laughed, taking Izuku from her arms. “I still have around thirty minutes until my alarm sounds. Do you really have so little expectations for me?”

Inko hummed, leaning against her husband’s broader build. “And how much experience in parenthood do you have? I wasn’t aware three days compared to three months of experience.”

Izuku screamed and hit Hisashi with his fist, making his father gasp for air after the surprisingly sturdy punch for a literal newborn.

“Oh dear,” Inko gasped, taking the trashing child back into her arms to allow her husband to heave without worry. “I don’t think he’s been sleeping well, should we take him to a doctor?”

Hisashi laughed after a few seconds, small licks of flames springing from his mouth as he finally recovered his breath. “If anything we should take him to a quirk doctor, he’s unexpectedly strong for a newborn.”

“But neither of our quirks are strength based, are you sure you just can’t take a punch?”

Hisashi scoffed, “he took me off guard, is all. And my brother had a strength quirk so anything is possible for him.”

The couple stayed in silence for the following minutes, bouncing the baby in their arms until the wailing quieted down to sniffles. Izuku’s fists were still balled together, but it didn’t seem like he would hit anyone again so soon.

“You rarely ever mention your brother.”

“He didn’t really like me much, I don’t really have much to say about him.”

The phone vibrated in his pocket, playing an old pre-quirk era song as the alarm. 5:30 am, the clock said. Hisashi stood up from the plush chair next to Inko and gave her a small kiss on the forehead before walking off to get ready for work.

Chapter Text

“He really is such a well behaved child!” Mitsuki exclaimed, looking at Izuku quietly stare at her with his green wonder-filled eyes. Besides her best friend’s kid, her own brat was screaming something and biting the pacifier that did absolutely nothing. “How do you manage to keep him so quiet? It is impossible for me to keep Katsuki quiet without putting All Might on the TV.”

Inko smiled kindly, almost with pity for Mitsuki’s horrendous eye bags but also with understanding. “Izuku is quiet during the day, but every time he wakes up it’s like he’s having a tantrum with how much he trashes around. Don’t tell Hisashi I told you, but Izuku actually hit him in the stomach his first night home so hard he has a bruise in there.”

Mitsuki snorted. Every baby had their little oddities, and some were definitely more painful than others. “I think only crying after waking up is better than crying for everything, well no actually, how do you even know when he needs something girl?”

A crow cawed outside, and the month-old baby turned around to look at the window. Izuku cooed something that sounded suspiciously like a word, but the baby was barely even a month old so it must’ve been a coincidence.

“He actually vocalizes a lot, but he’s quiet when it comes to it. He cries a lot but it’s really silent when he does, almost impossible to hear actually,” Inko explained, picking up the baby and bringing him up to the window as he made grubby hands at the bird and kept making the same sounds at the bird. “Would you look at that, little Izuku is crying again, you’d never notice if you weren’t up close.”

Mrs. Bakugou’s baby was loud, very loud, as he had witnessed first hand. Katsuki barely stopped his screeching to gasp for air, even when he was on his mother’s arms. Although the loud demeanor did seem to be something he and his mother shared, besides the eyes, hair, and pretty much everything.

His own mother had him in her arms still, though they were further from the window now. Mrs. Bakugou also carried Katsuki, though he squirmed around and yelled without end. He could tell he was a good kid, just a tad bit far too loud.

“Why don’t we put on the TV for the kids and continue talking without the brat’s yelling? I could do with some peace and calm,” Mrs. Bakugou offered, turning her head to the device mounted on the wall.

His mother laughed and nodded, bringing him and the other child to a small area closed off by a thin fabric. She put on the TV, changing the images from one to another until a muscular man in skin tight clothes appeared on a small corner of the screen with another man in a suit who was talking about the events.

Katsuki crawled over to him the moment his mom set him down, pulling his clothes and pointing at the TV with a smile. He's so innocent, Gyomei thought, it is truly endearing. I wonder how he will grow up to be.

Izuku turned to the TV, wondering how the technology worked. He understood some events from the news when he was within earshot, but others were so outright ridiculous that he doubted if he was actually reincarnated and not just dreaming in his death. Still, one good thing that came from it was that Gyomei knew how long it had been since his death.

2238.

Over 300 years into the future, and so much had changed since Gyomei was alive.

Technology as he knew it had evolved far beyond his wildest imaginations, from cars to instantaneous communication across the world; it was quite the large jump.

“—a bank robbery, showing on scene within moments the alarm was raised and effortlessly subdued the villains and controlled the damages caused—”

The image changed to the muscular man taking over the entire TV. He was waving at reporters and holding one of the guys with handcuffs, smiling widely all the while. The robbers had their faces obscured by black squares, but most had very identifiable “quirks.”

Quirks, an oddity in that new time Izuku lived in. Abilities akin to blood demon arts that all of the population possessed, as far as he knew. Fire breath, object levitation, physical mutations—if it was conceivable it was possible.

Katsuki laughed and pointed at the man on screen, looking at him with excitement. He's a kind child, and I can't help but notice why he enjoys this… All Might so much, the man does bring an image of hope to people.

He smiled back and the kid shrieked happily, crawling over to the TV and looked up at the tricolored man. It was strange to know that while Izuku was technically younger than Katsuki he still felt paternal towards him, and… yeah.

Still, it was much more peaceful. Everything faded to background noise quickly and he began to pray, closing his eyes and stilling his thoughts.

After four months he had learned hiragana and katakana. He still read slowly, but for being self taught and a four month old (because the alternative was more embarrassing) he was pretty decent at it.

Sometimes his father brought him old story books from over 200 years ago, claiming, “the pre-quirk era children's stories were much better written and teach values better than today's society ever could.”

They were little stories with animals as the characters, talking about sharing, equality, honesty and respect in a few, simple words. He pointed at the characters as he read them, and talked to him in a soft voice telling him to fight for what was right no matter what, even though he saw his son as an infant.

Sometimes his mother also read to him other books from the era they were at, showing people who used their quirks to save people and fight against people who used them to do harm. Heroes and villains, as society dubbed them.

He thought of it as a very extremist view, encasing everything exclusively as “good” and “evil” when there was no explanation from the villain’s side of things, unlike the other stories his father showed him where there was some explanation as to why the bad guy was like that and they resolved it peacefully. It was an extremely idealistic view of things in those stories, but they taught that there was more than just one side to the situation.

He didn’t like the story where the “villain” with a stone skin quirk was immediately imprisoned for life after being found in the crime scene without any trial as modern law dictated for. In a way, it reminded Gyomei of himself and the injustice he was forced to live through.

They never read him that story again, and he liked it that way.

In that very moment, he was reading the grocery list his mother was writing, sitting atop of the counter. Eggs, milk, baby formula, watermelon, pork, noodles…

“You're always so attentive Izuku,” his mother laughed, “are you trying to help me with the groceries?”

Sitting next to her and the shopping list, he cooed softly and looked away sheepishly.

She laughed, picking him up to sit him down at a high chair. She left to search in a few drawers and when she came back she gave him a piece of paper and some colored crayons, as he'd learned the wax-like utensils were called.

“You wanna do the grocery list with mama?”

There certainly were times in which he felt undeserving for such a kind and healthy family. The first time he’d had a nightmare about them would forever be ingrained into his mind; because that wasn't a memory, but a fear that he would never be strong enough to be able to protect those he held dear.

And sometimes he woke up in his father's arms, feeling his hands stained with blood and carrying the scent of iron deep into the crevices of his spirit where he could never clean it off.

It was never in his mother’s arms.

He took a blue crayon the same way his mother held the pen, and began to draw one of the flowers in the windowsill. Long petals, all in one layer and in a bright white color.

When he turned to look at his reference again he saw his mother pointing her phone at him.

“Oh, you're such a good artist Izuku!” She cheered, pointing the camera closer.

“M– ma!” he whined, almost against his will.

The drawing was absolute garbage and looked nothing like the flower, but it still ended up on the fridge.

By the time he was seven months old, Izuku learned to turn off the monitor that warned his parents of any sound and began exploring the house freely.

By that time, he also knew how to walk, so in the dead silence of the night and the darkness he knew how to navigate with ease he began learning more about the time he lived in.

His father's office was always open unless he had to do something for his job, apparently it was for it to avoid humidity being trapped in. In there, Izuku climbed up the chair onto the desk where he turned on the computer and turned down all the volume.

He learned to use the keyboard, the mouse and the search engine in the span of the first week of his nightly escapades.

In the second week he did his first important search, one of someone he knew for certain that wouldn’t stay out of the public eye if he had any say about it: Uzui Tengen.

He had written the name in hiragana as he didn’t know the kanji for it, but surprisingly he found images that fit the description of his old colleague—long, white hair, a bejeweled eye-patch, vibrant clothes definitely meant to garner as much attention as possible and reddish-pink eyes with horrendous eye bags covered by some makeup—and a summary of his life right under his search.

1893 (unknown location)-1960 (Tokyo, Japan). Published author, martial arts teacher, ex-shinobi. Best known for his book “Obscured War of the Night” (1917, movie adaptation made in 2004).

He clicked on the first link, a biography of his old colleague written a little over 200 years ago. It spoke in very general terms of his early life as a shinobi at first, up until the moment when he escaped the Uzui clan with his 3 wives and supposedly “joined a martial arts dojo owned by the Ubuyashiki family in 1908.”

1908 was the year when he joined the corps, and 1910 when he became a pillar.

It skipped a few years, stating that he mastered swordsmanship during the time missing and then mentioned that he and his wives alongside three students were caught in the Red Light District bombing of 1915, where they all helped people caught in the carnage with their training but he ended up losing a hand and an eye.

The mission when he defeated uppermoon 6.

Then it said he opened his own dojo separately, and in 1916 most of his students and colleagues were victims of the Taisho Tokyo Massacre.

The final battle.

One year later he published his book, “representing the horrors of the Great War as demons from traditional Japanese folklore and those he trained in his youth as warriors, but most importantly survivors who wished for a better world to live in,” as the article said.

“Obscured War of the Night” was part of an anti-war literary and artistic movement called War's Demonification which consisted of interconnected works from various authors and artists—such as Agatsuma Zenitsu and Yamamoto Yushiro—that spanned from the second half of the 1910's up to the early 1930's, later to regain popularity due to the second World War.

Gyomei was completely horrified to discover in his following search that the Great War paled in comparison to such drastic religious oppression and horrifying weapons that brought destruction and death to the world. He quickly decided to end his nocturnal escapade right then and there and erase the search history before waddling back to the crib with tears in his eyes.

In the dark, with the monitor turned on again, he turned his blurry vision to the clock that said 3:47 am and back again at the cold ceiling.

All the suffering, blood and sacrifice was shared to the world disguised as stories, critics and memoirs; still, they helped people by doing that.

The silence was sharp, almost deafening in a way. It was quiet in the way it was loud and constant with the whirring of the fan in his parents’ room and the electrical thrum from the monitor. It was quiet in the unnatural way the city sounded at night, with its lack of nocturnal wildlife chirping and cawing the world to sleep. Most of all, it was quiet in the way it felt to walk around a ghost town in search for a demon, feeling their cursed presence in the raised hairs of the back of his neck and heavy air with the stench of rot.

He turned back to the rotating shadow of the mobile hanging over his head. “How cwuel…” he sobbed in the dead of the night, clasping his hands as he used to do.

Minutes passed, and he still couldn’t fall asleep. His thoughts shifted back to Uzui’s biography, the book and the works the surviving slayers made of their own suffering. He recognized the names mentioned in the movement, it was the boy that had a sudden shift in his temperament during his training and the allied demon with the concealment blood demon art. Perhaps one of the following nights he would search for what Yushiro was up to, as far as he knew the demon should still be alive.

He wondered how he could do a memoir of the people he failed to protect, especially since he wanted to do something he could have done even in his past life.

Chapter Text

“Happy birthday Izuku!” everyone cheered, from his parents to their friends and even the kids slightly older than him. Back home, July 15 had been circled on the calendar on the wall, accompanied by a small birthday cake doodle. In front of him, there was a small white cake with a candle waiting to be blown.

“Go on Izuku, blow the candle and make a wish,” his father said.

He didn’t care much for his birthday in particular, but everyone’s joy and festive mood was contagious. He enjoyed seeing everyone smile at the camera and hearing them laugh over the contagious children’s music.

He blew the candle, holding a vague hope to be able to protect those close to him this time around.

After the cake the adults were mostly talking, but a few were playing a game about attempting to place a tail on a cartoon animal while blindfolded after their kids coaxed them to it.

“Dada! Win, win!” Katsuki cheered, pulling at Mr. Bakugou’s pant leg. He had learned to walk by himself a few months previous to the party, and now he refused to be carried by his parents at all times.

Mr. Bakugou laughed, calming down his son and excusing himself from the conversation he was having with Izuku’s own parents. He took the blindfold and some kids from the neighborhood cheered as he spun around once, twice, thrice, and then wobbled over to the cartoon and placed the tail on its forehead. He took off the blindfold and the kids laughed at him, though Katsuki reprimanded him in what few words he knew and tried to go next.

Mr. Bakugou tried to explain to his son, “Katsuki, you can get hurt and you’ll worry your mom even more,” but the blond kid ignored him completely in favor of trying to get the blindfold from his father’s raised hand.

“I’ll win! Like All Might!”

“Katsuki—”

“Win! Win, win, win!”

“Oi! Brat! Listen to your dad,” Mrs. Bakugou yelled back, barely even distracting her from the conversation she was maintaining. She had that odd way of behaving with her family; loud, brash and rude. Still, he had seen more behind closed doors and felt the weight of her actions so he knew that she just loved them in her own loud and abrasive way. Though maybe it would be good to turn down the volume a bit… his hearing was still as sensitive as it was before—if not more from the extended period of nothingness.

Katsuki ran to his mom complaining, babbling nonsense and pointing at the game. Mrs. Bakugou was firm on her decision, but Izuku’s mom interjected, “maybe if he spun around only once and you were there for him he could play Mitsuki, let the kids have fun.”

Katsuki lit up immediately, cheering and running off to take the blindfold from one of the older kids—who was really just a teenager who was forced to be there against her will—that gladly bestowed the blindfold by unceremoniously dropping it on his head. Not even baby charm worked on her, as she continued to read something on her phone with an impassive expression. A white background with a red header, with a bunch of things listed down before the title of the work she read.

Katsuki ran past him, tripping and falling in the process but ignoring it to play the game. A kid that couldn’t have been older than eight tied it loosely over his eyes and his dad helped him turn around once. Mr. Bakugou settled him facing to the cartoon and Katsuki walked over with the man close behind to place the tail, missing the mark on the opposite side that his father did.

He himself turned away from his new people watching hobby to the bushes from the park, listening intently to something small and light footed, running between the leaves and foliage quickly. The bright green leaves shuffled with its movement, and he followed it attentively while trying to steal a glance from the animal doing the noise. A squirrel, probably; those were much more widespread than they were in the Taisho era. Then maybe it could also have been a raccoon, though he hadn’t actually seen neither of those animals in anything other than caricatures meant for kids.

His mother came back around, scooping him into her lap gently. “What are you looking at Izuku?” She asked gently, following his gaze to the shifting bushes.

A small animal jumped out. It had dark fluffy fur, bright green eyes, a long tail and pointy ears. It was cute, very cute. He had only ever seen the dogs from some neighbors when they went to the Bakugou’s house or to the supermarket, but this animal? A thousand times more adorable, and that was saying that dogs were also very cute.

It meowed.

“Kitty?”

The word left him before he realized it, looking in awe at the beautiful cat. That was what he had missed all that time? It was the most adorable animal he could ever envision. How did Shinobu ever fear them? Cats truly were the most wonderful thing in the world.

At the end of the party, Izuku had gotten a huge pile of stuffed toys, some colorful clay, plenty of building blocks, and—against Inko’s complaints—the cat he’d found. She had no idea why Hisashi even thought that it was a good idea to give their infant son a street cat, but Izuku had been so enamored by it and the cat didn’t bite when he got close, so he ended up getting it.

Not to mention that when Izuku talked to the cat it was the most she heard him talk; and no, she was not jealous of a cat for being more interesting to her baby than her or his dad.

“He really likes that cat,” Hisashi chimed in, leaning against the doorframe with his muscular arms crossed.

It was true, seeing Izuku softly caress the cat as it lied on its back to receive belly rubs. Her son’s smile was blinding, despite the little pinpricks of tears at the edge of his eyes. It had been the most joyous she had seen him, far surpassing the play dates he had with Katsuki or the times he watched the outside through the window.

Izuku was a calm child, never yelling during the day and having grown quieter than before in the mornings after he woke up. He already showed the awkwardness from Inko and the old soul from Hisashi despite barely being a year old. He was smart too, she had already seen him look at her writing and make discernible drawings—like the lily drawing that she had placed on the fridge—not to mention that at just 4 months old he spoke his first word, and she had evidence of it on video.

“I still don’t think it is a good idea to give him a pet while he is so young.”

“Plenty of people raise their children alongside their pets.”

“Yes but those pets aren’t strays. Who knows how many diseases it carries?”

“Inko,” Hisashi looked at her endearingly before shattering the illusion abruptly, “Abe-san has a disease detecting quirk and she already said it was all good, stop worrying so much.”

“But what if it doesn’t work on animals?”

“She’s a veterinarian, I don’t think we have to worry about that.”

“But what if it bites or scratches Izuku?”

“We’ll see how he reacts, and it is not much to worry about. It’s just a kitten, ok? It’s just beginning to grow.”

Inko turned to see Izuku, finding him walking behind the animal. He had learned to walk at an early age, 10 months, if she wasn’t mistaken. But even then he never left her line of sight; and it wasn’t because she didn’t let him—which she didn’t—but because he never went far by himself.

“I’m worrying too much aren’t I?”

Hisashi chuckled and pulled her close, whispering, “that’s part of your charm love.”

Himejima Gyomei was the only guy older than me at the corps, carrying the title of stone hashira. He was taller than me, and leagues stronger. I didn’t know much of him, even though we fought together for six years against demons. He kept quiet and private, never spoke much other than the prayers he muttered under his breath and the tears perpetually flowing from his eyes.

Despite all that, he was incredibly flamboyant in his composure. What few words he shared were always enough, wise, kind and necessary. He was direct with his thoughts, and plentiful with his insight. He would have been a monk if things had gone differently, or maybe a father; he had the makings of both of them.

I never thought that someone missing a sense could be so strong, imposing and confident in his bearing. I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t overheard him comforting the Oyakata-sama about loosing his own eyesight. He fought, holding with broken hands a kusarigama and moving with resounding steps throughout the battlefield. He always washed them, almost religiously dare I say, and sometimes he wrapped them in bandages, “for the pain,” as he would say.

But even through those six years when we fought together, I didn’t know him beyond the surface. I think that’s what he wanted, since we all had lost so much it was normal to keep distance for the loss to hurt less. He walked as if he had one foot in the grave already and kept himself apart to dull the loss for others.

Obscured War of the Night, 1917.

Most kids cried when their parents left them at the daycare; but Katsuki wasn’t like most kids, he was stronger! He was stronger than all of them! He was the strongest two year old in the whole world!

Well, all of them except one.

Izuku was perfectly calm, even more than him. Katsuki had to stop himself from crying when his mom left but Izuku only hugged auntie like it was nothing! He said “see you soon” way too easily! Izuku really was going to be an amazing hero if he was so calm and ma-tu-re like a grown up already.

“Zu-kun! Come here!” Katsuki waved him over, sitting next to the building blocks.

Izuku saw him and smiled softly, walking over calmly and sitting next to him. “Hello Katsuki-kun. How are you?”

Katsuki grinned, large and proud like All Might, “I’m great! Can you believe all those other kids are crying for their moms? This is why we’re going to be the best heroes!”

Izuku turned to look at them, but he didn’t look proud for himself, just sad. “It’s normal to miss our parents after always being with them. Don’t you miss your mom or dad?”

“Well– well yeah, but I’m not crying about it!” How did he know that anyways? He was hiding it so well! “You must miss auntie too! Don’t act like you don’t!”

Izuku only nodded, and little tears began to form at his eyes. He brought one of his hands up to wipe his eyes clean and then admitted the truth, “I'm not acting like I don't. I'm worried something will happen to mom or dad but there isn't much I can do.”

“Are you really that worried? Uncle is strong and he'll protect auntie!” Katsuki yelled, blowing the air like uncle Hisashi did when he used his awesome quirk.

“He is strong, but there are always stronger people,” Izuku murmured, looking out the window with a sad face.

Katsuki looked at the building blocks; red, yellow and blue, just like All Might. “Do you think… there's someone stronger than All Might?”

Izuku looked at his hands—trembling and white knuckled—for a while. He started to cry, but not like the other weaklings who were just starting to calm down from being left behind or something, just cooped up sadness. “I think,” he began with a shaky voice, “that no matter how strong, someone could be a lot of people, or maybe even time.”

Katsuki didn't know what else to say. Izuku was so very strong, but more than that he was sad. And in the same way he felt stronger around him, Katsuki also felt sadder when he was around.

Gyomei felt stagnant, still, and growing placid. He often felt a presence in the back of his mind, somewhat demonic and not quite as ancient or rotten of death and prolonged decay. Simply uncanny, old and greedy.

That night, he sat on the crib cross-legged. He muttered quiet prayers under his breath, holding his hands together in prayer as he prepared himself.

Breathe, deep and energizing my body beyond its previous limits.

A green plastic bottle of water sat between the wooden planks holding him in, filled to the brim with water. The monitor was already turned off, but he wasn’t particularly worried that something would happen that his parents needed to know of while it was off. The clock read 1:03 am.

Focus, steady and remember. Feel the emotions burning through first, and then breathe.

The first family he had, taken abruptly from him; the orphans, each and every one far too young for their death at hands of his unreliability; the Kocho sisters, daughters he never should have allowed to train or guided them to their death; the mist hashira Tokito, far too young and just relearning how to live; the doomed brotherhood of the Shinazugawas, who never got to talk about their issues together; Iguro and Kanroji's love, never spoken and never fruitful; the countless lives of those he didn’t know the names of; the families who never got their sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers and mothers back; the demons forced to lose all their humanity and partake that accursed path of blood, death and monstrosity; all from the cruelty of Kibutsuji Muzan.

He inhaled, feeling the burning in his lungs and the aching in his chest. Every nerve came alive with feeling and every muscle took in more blood, more oxygen and more strength. Izuku’s body wasn't used to it, and with good reason as he was barely just a kid.

He managed a second breath, a third, by the fourth he was trembling and the fifth broke apart in a coughing fit.

With a trembling hand he reached for the bottle of water, soothing his dry throat with every drop. “Ughh… I forgot it felt like… this.”

He put down the bottle and flopped onto the cushion to continue regaining his breath, staring at the ceiling with thick rivers of tears falling down his face. The presence still irked in the back of his mind, taunting and evil though not quite demonic.

“Namu amida butsu… What has my life come to?”

Nibbles, his cat, jumped up on the crib and curled up besides him. Her purring was calming, like any other cat's, and steadied him in company of his prayers.

He sat up to turn back on the monitor, and hugged the cat as he still tried (and failed) to get a regular sleep schedule.

Chapter Text

Gyomei was used to extreme temperatures, be it flames burning under his feet or chilling gusts of wind seeping through his clothes.

That didn't mean that Izuku couldn't get sick though. And he HATED it.

Now then, normally “hate” would be a strong word in his vocabulary; reserved for those who became demons willingly, enjoyed causing sorrow, went out of their way to ruin or take lives, committed inexcusable acts of evil and Kibutsuji Muzan (mainly Kibutsuji, may he rest in pieces, and if his resting place wasn’t alongside the one of plenty of his comrades in arms he would even wish his grave to be defiled.)

In his book, being sick definitely qualified as something worth of hating. It dulled his senses, didn't let him breathe right, made his throat feel parched, made his muscles hurt and worst of all, it was what made him go blind in his last life.

Now then, he already knew it was a different kind of fever and the chances of losing his eyesight again were incredibly slim if none at all, not to mention his father had already taken him and his mother to a doctor who confirmed they had the flu and had given them some medicine. And before even getting sick, they still had gotten their vaccines (and it was safe to say he still hated those, even if he could see when the needle was coming and brace himself for the feeling of the medicine going into his bloodstream) and that had technically made them get less sick.

He didn't feel it. In fact, he felt more ill than ever before.

So, he was lying down in his bed, with Nibbles as his personal heating pad over him; purring and doing biscuits. A migraine pulsed behind his eyes and his crying made his stuffy nose a thousand times worse.

His mother was also suffering in silence in a recliner couch his father had moved to his room. Three boxes of tissues were on the bedside; one for him, one for his mom, and a last one just in case. Next to those were empty cups that had had tea and warm water in them before they drank them dry in attempts to soothe their agony.

“I hate this…” he said absentmindedly.

His mother took a drink of warm water from a metal cup as she looked at him. “Hate is a very strong word Izuku,” she chastised softly.

“It is a very strong feeling too,” he concluded seriously, and his mother almost spat out the water as she laughed and had a coughing fit simultaneously.

Mr. Bakugou tied the child leash on Katsuki for the fifth time that day in an increasingly complex way as his son tried to run away to every hero merch store in the mall.

“Come on Katsuki, this'll be easier for both of us if you don't run off,” he sighed, ending up completely ignored by the screeching kid begging for a hero card collection package or something of the sort.

Gyomei had heard the term “terrible twos” and “terrific threes” thrown around by a few adults when talking about toddlers and the horrific tantrums, which made perfect sense despite the cruel generalization. He had lived through several tantrums for nonsense reasons both in the Taisho era and the Quirk era to confirm the stereotype; and yes, not all toddlers had tantrums for a single rice falling from their plate, but a good part definitely did.

“How about I take the boys to the store and you take a break Masaru? You look more stressed than usual,” his father offered, placing an arm over his friend’s shoulders and taking the child leash from Mr. Bakugou’s hands.

The brown haired man sighed and nodded, almost relieved but not quite there as of yet. “Thank you Hisashi, but are you sure you can handle Katsuki? He's much more more than Izuku.”

His father laughed and patted his back, assuring him it was alright and that he could take it easily while they all waited for Mrs. Bakugou and his mother. Meanwhile, Izuku tried to convince Katsuki to keep the child leash on and promised they could go to the store he wanted to first while they waited.

“I want to go there!” Katsuki proclaimed seriously after he calmed down, pointing at a hero store with a pout.

His father nodded, already walking to the store, “alright then. Is there anywhere you want to go to Izuku?”

He looked around the stores, most of clothes, electronics, toys, hero merch or some offshoot of the previous list. There were a couple of restaurants from various places or styles of food, and although some looked good they weren't going to eat without everyone so those were discarded.

“I'm fine with whatever dad.”

His father rolled his eyes and gave him a light squeeze in his hand. “That won't do, you also deserve something. How about this, I’ll buy you both something under 2,000 yen if you behave later when your moms have you try on clothes. Otherwise I'll have to take the gifts away until your birthdays!”

Izuku nodded, “that sounds fair.”

Katsuki looked up at the adult in charge, “even an All Might action figure?”

His father's eyebrow twitched almost imperceptibly and his grip on the leash tightened. “Are you sure you don't want another hero? Maybe Best Jeanist or Miruko would be better.”

“I. Want. All. Might.”

“Only if his merch is within the price range, and you must promise you won't cry if there is none,” he clarified—quite literally stifling a groan—and Katsuki seemed plenty content with that.

Izuku looked up at the signage at the top of the store, reading HEROIC INSPIRATION in bright red letters. The inside was spacious and well lit with rows and rows of posters, action figures, collectibles, mini figures, costumes, and things that had little to do with the heroes in question but were heavily inspired by their brand. In every corner of the store there were TVs playing some hero fights, most from All Might as his fame and status preceded him, but quite a few with younger heroes and a section on the corner of the store labeled “underground heroes” that was mostly empty save for a few tabloids with images taken mid-fight and a single TV showing a man with long, black hair fight in an alleyway against several men without any discernible quirk.

His movements were fast and fluid, using a scarf and at one point a dagger with familiar movements he couldn’t quite place. At the end of the clip, the person who took the video from their phone asked him his name and only received the reply of “Eraserhead,” before the hero jumped away into the night.

“Why is there so little about underground heroes?” Izuku asked, looking back at his dad, who was trying to convince Katsuki to get a Miruko figure instead of an All Might one.

He turned around with a confused and baffled expression, looking at him with wide eyes. “Since when do you know how to read Izuku?”

He shrugged, “I’ve known for a while now.”

His father sighed, “Why doesn’t this surprise me? Never mind, underground heroes remain mostly unknown to be able to defeat worse villains without giving away anything that could be used against them, so that's why they don't make merch about themselves.”

Katsuki placed back the Miruko figure he didn't want on the shelf and took the All Might one he preferred before intervening, “That sounds so lame! Real heroes don't fear anything and fight with everyone knowing everything of them and still win!”

“But underground heroes are doing it only to help people and not for recognition then, and they’d get less money from it too,” Izuku replied, turning back to the tabloids with blurry and shadowed figures as if they were the demon slayers he fought with. Fighting without recognition, only to do what was right and help those who needed it.

“I want to be an underground hero one day,” he commented, taking one of the tabloids of Eraserhead.

His father smiled, “I think they’re the best kind of heroes out there son, I’m sure you’ll be great.”

Izuku had tried on plenty of sweaters, jackets, winter pants and even some boots. Most he’d gotten because his mother liked them, but a few he chose too. Softer fabrics, in simpler designs and in bright greens or yellows in contrast to the obvious hero merch there was in every store.

They had already gone to eat, stopping by at a fast food place to eat. Katsuki complained about the vegetables in his burger, and when his father reminded him of their previous deal he dismissed him saying “that only applied to the clothes and I didn’t complain about them!”

He ate Katsuki’s vegetables instead, and lunch went on without much fuss.

“Since you’ve behaved so well I think you deserve something, so do you want dessert boys?” Mrs. Bakugou asked, carrying several of the bags from her purchases and Katsuki’s.

Katsuki almost started vibrating with emotion, jumping up and down with starry eyes. “Can we get ice cream mom? Please, please, please, pleaseeeeeee!”

“Calm down brat, Izuku also has a say on this okay? The world doesn’t revolve around you,” Mrs. Bakugou sighed fondly, smiling at the pout her son made and the pleading eyes he gave Izuku.

“I like vanilla ice cream, Mrs. Bakugou,” was the response he deigned appropriate. He wasn’t particularly a great enjoyer of sweets, but he didn’t dislike them, he just preferred more savory foods and found most desserts from the Quirk era far too sweet or excessively flavorful.

“I’ve already told you to call me auntie, ok? I’ve known you your whole life,” Mrs. Bakugou—auntie—told him with a teasing tone, smiling as he nodded sheepishly and muttered apologies as he looked away.

“Ice cream it is then, what flavor do you want Katsuki?” his mom confirmed, smiling and leading the group to the ice cream shop.

“Ca-ra-mal… ca-reh-mel… ka-ru-ma…the brown sweet one!”

She laughed, almost patting Katsuki’s head before she remembered she was carrying a lot of bags and stopped before one would hit the toddler. “It’s ca-ra-mel, Katsuki,” she corrected kindly and then asked the other adults if they wanted anything while she was on the line.

Nobody wanted anything, so the rest of them went to sit down and wait on a bench nearby. Katsuki took out his new figure and showed it off to his parents, while Izuku’s dad grumbled about “wasting money on something of that yellow oaf.”

Izuku himself only listened, looking at the tabloid of Eraserhead. It irked something in him, calling forth a familiar feeling he couldn’t quite place when he thought about the video of him that played on the TV over that ignored corner of the store. It had only been a few seconds when the hero used the dagger, but it had left an impression on him and he couldn’t get it out of his mind.

He looked up to distract himself from all that, returning to people watching the other shoppers as they went on with their lives. It calmed him to know that the world went on, to see people be at peace and live without worries day after day. Next to an escalator, where people weren’t impeded from their walk, a man was playing a song on his guitar. It was a small song, without any lyrics but a nice melody—calming and soft—though he couldn’t listen to it all that well over the various conversations everyone held with others.

“Dad,” he pulled at his father’s sleeve after swallowing down his awkwardness, “can we go listen to the man’s song?”

His father smiled and gladly took him to listen to the song alongside a small crowd. The song had a faster pace then—more joyful and lively than before—showing several emotions without any word and only the hands that spoke the universal language of art and passion. Most people around were adults, though he spotted a small group of teenagers taking a video of them dancing to the song nearby and a girl with purple hair and long earlobes next to him.

She looked around his age, but unlike other kids who were two she was calmer, more tranquil in her mannerisms rather than looking for something to do constantly. Her eyes were older, wiser in the way that spoke of some experience. She turned around to look at him and smiled cheekily.

“Hi! What’s your name greenie?” she asked.

“I’m Hi- Midoriya Izuku,” he replied, blinking the usual teariness out of his eyes.

“That’s a flamboyant name Izuku-kun! I’m Jirou Kyoka!”

Something in her words made him smile back, and by the time they were done talking and listening to the song her dad and his father had already exchanged numbers to let them hang out more often.

His mom handed him a vanilla cone when they got back to the group and asked, “did something happen? You look happier Izuku.”

And Gyomei nodded, “I think I made a new friend.”

A few weeks later, Inko was teaching Izuku to use the computer. There were some free and child-friendly games he could play in there now that the excessive toddler energy was kicking in and she couldn’t take him to the daycare since it was winter break.

She had been thoroughly surprised when Hisashi told her that their two year old son could already read, but it wasn’t anything like seeing it for herself when he searched for the games in the platform by himself and murmured the names to himself under his breath.

She was really considering taking him to a quirk clinic like Hisashi had suggested when he was born, thinking with all seriousness that Izuku had an intelligence quirk before Hisashi showed her that it couldn’t have been the case since people with intelligence quirks always ate much more sugar than usual for the glucose their brains required and Izuku didn’t like sweets all that much.

So she looked at her son as he played a rhythm game, hitting the notes with ease at the right moment almost every time.

“Hey mom? If I find a free music app can I download it into the computer?” Izuku asked, pausing the game and looking at her with all the seriousness in the world; much more than a kid should ever be able to muster on their face.

The question took her by surprise, snapping her out of her thoughts in an instant. “If it doesn’t use up all of the space of your dad’s computer then I don’t see any problem, but why do you ask?”

Izuku looked back at the computer game and after a few moments of silence he answered, “I’ve been thinking about it for a while now and… I don’t know. I like music and it shares feelings better than anything I say ever could.”

She blinked in surprise, not finding any words to respond to that. She wondered at times what she did to deserve such a wise and sensible son—an old soul—just like Hisashi.

“You’ve always been too wise for your age, you know? I can’t think of any three year old who listens to music and thinks of the feelings it shows,” Inko finally said, smiling fondly at her kid.

Izuku’s face went red and he murmured something under his breath as he looked away. He quickly opened another tab on the computer, searching for free music programs and scrolling down through the options’ reviews—he was so careful even when looking for something for a hobby—until he found one that was completely free, had great reviews (even if there were few) and had an objective of making music accessible for everyone and anyone, with over 200 popular instruments and an option that Izuku looked a little too intently at which was for making artificial singers from several base voices.

“I like this one,” he finally said after reading through the entire website.

Inko could only nod, and she installed Instrumental on their computer.

Chapter Text

Despite it being a fake identity, Hisashi Midoriya was the real name of the feared SS ranked villain All for One, the boogeyman of quirked society and quite possibly the only person alive that could pose a challenge to the ridiculous fuck that was All Might. He was a man with more quirks than he could count, some willingly given, most forcefully taken, all useful for one thing or another.

Super strength, flight, laser eyes, physical mutations, super speed, fire, water, ice, anything that came to mind he probably had it in there somewhere. So logically, Izuku had the potential to inherit any and all quirks of his as he had the villain’s DNA.

Until the quirk showed up, Hisashi couldn’t detect the quirk factor (or steal it) but he still could come up with several possibilities his boy could inherit with doctor Garaki. He had already pulled several strings to ensure Izuku had him as his quirk doctor when Inko inevitably took him for an examination sooner rather than later. Most of Izuku’s peers in the kindergarten wouldn’t take long to begin developing them, if not having been born with mutant quirks themselves.

Still, despite his objective cruelty when at the job (or jobs, considering he did technically go work a 9 to 5, but that one didn’t count because he wasn’t rude in that one to anyone other than self absorbed idiots) he still loved his family with all his heart and he had learned from past mistakes to not stuff them in a bank vault or take away their freedom for anything in the world.

But in the end, that didn’t prove hard to accomplish. Inko listened to him as much as she asked him in the relationship, and Izuku—despite his somewhat undesirable career path that would hopefully change as he grew older—had a strong character and a wise mind that would definitely give him a good future.

Sometimes Inko sent him to his personal phone videos of Izuku in the computer with Nibbles on his lap as he worked on some song in the program he had. The first few were of him trying to figure out how to work the program out, but several of them afterwards were much more detailed as he polished down to the detail the voice of the “singer” he’d use to the point it was virtually indistinguishable from a real person’s. After he finished with one voice he’d go on to another and another, sometimes older, or younger, or rougher, or softer, more masculine, or feminine ,or dull or cheerful.

Izuku was patient, dedicated and disciplined, paying attention to his teachers and every day arriving home to do his chores before refining or composing something of his songs on the computer. It reached a point where Hisashi had already mentioned to Inko the possibility of getting a new computer to let Izuku keep that one for his birthday. He’d much prefer if the boy became a full time musician—as he clearly had talent, understanding and dedication to the craft—rather than becoming another hero that meddled too deep in things that didn’t concern him, but if he did Hisashi was confident that he could control the underworld so his son wouldn’t stick his nose where he wasn’t needed.

“All for One, are you thinking about them again?” the doctor asked, turning away from his oversized computer full of chemical compositions, DNA sequences and hidden proof of almost perfect beings.

“They’re my family, doctor Garaki. It is only natural.”

The older-looking man only hummed a reply and returned to the screens to continue analyzing the results previous experiments yielded. “Soon enough you’ll need to leave them, or at least tell the boy the truth when he manifests a quirk and it raises questions. He’s already shown premature signs of increased strength and intelligence, no? There is a substantial possibility he inherited those quirks from you,” the doctor commented.

“He still shows no quirk factor. You don’t need to worry, when he does I’ll tell him my real quirk and help him hide his own in some plausible way,” Hisashi replied, leaving no room for discussion on the matter.

Doctor Garaki nodded curtly and they both allowed the sound of the clicking keyboard fill the air.

Taiki Kitamura was a humble man according to many. He had a good life, working with his wife at a small kindergarten in Musutafu and helping the children learn the colors, shapes, writing systems and most of all how to control their quirks as they came in.

Now then, his quirk wasn’t anything particularly helpful for the job in the way others were. He could just make a bright orb of light between his hands, dim the intensity of it and make it change colors. Simple, easy and a nice distraction for children crying for their moms and dads.

He wouldn’t give his job for anything in the world (save for world peace, but until that day came he would gladly continue taking care of the kids) even if all of the kids had cried out a storm at one point or another, some more than others but it was practically an unwritten rule of the job that there would be ear splitting screaming every day of the week by one kid or another.

All save for Izuku Midoriya.

Izuku cried a lot, almost for anything and everything there was at least one tear shed. From the storybooks, hero and villain games every kid played, and even molding clay as he’d found the green-haired child do once over a surprisingly detailed sculpture of a smiling teenage boy. Still, even through all his tears he never raised his voice for anything at all, and Taiki had no doubt that under all that sadness and emotion the boy was an artistic genius, as he was demonstrating now.

They were teaching the kids music with simple instruments, and by music he meant some semblance of rhythm and patience with bongos, triangles and little flutes. Izuku had been the first kid to form in line and get to choose which instrument he wanted to use. He held the triangle and the bongos as he studied his options, but when he hold the flute something in his demeanor shifted as tears began to dwell on his eyes.

“Is everything alright, Izuku-kun?” Taiki found himself asking almost immediately, calming down the boy and taking him apart from the group as Kiku continued with the activity in his stead.

Izuku nodded and wiped his tears and answered, “I’m fine Taiki-sensei, please don’t worry about me.”

Taiki didn’t believe Izuku’s family life was bad, everything he said of them was truthful and one of the healthiest dynamics he’d ever found in a kid’s family. Still, his emotional tears were different from his—how to put it?—depressive trauma of unclear origin tears.

“Can I… um… begin playing before the others? Please?” Izuku asked, holding the flute like it was something precious for him. “I just… namu… want to try a little earlier.”

Izuku had never asked for anything before, only joining in what others were doing—and by others that usually meant Katsuki, since he was very nervous around the other children—as another one in the group. And normally, he wouldn’t let any kid to start the activity before the others to avoid tantrums and teach them patience; still, Izuku was an odd case and by far the best behaved kid that he’d come across in his entire career.

“Alright then, but this is only a one time thing, ok Izuku?” Taiki conceded, softening his gaze at the kid.

Izuku nodded holding the flute with familiarity in his movements and blew strongly into it, causing a very loud and off-tune sound to come out from it. He looked at the flute as if it had personally offended him, narrowing his eyes at it as if that would do anything. “I don’t get why this happens,” he grumbled and frowned.

“You need to blow softly into it, otherwise it won’t sound good,” Taiki explained, holding back laughter when Izuku made a little “oh!”

Izuku tried again, blowing softly at the flute and allowing the soft and sweet notes play one after another. He played well, better than Taiki ever could and Izuku clearly had never gotten lessons since he hadn’t even known that he had to blow softly into it.

“You really are a monster with the flute,” Taiki chuckled, sitting down cross legged at his level.

Izuku froze in an instant, stopping abruptly the music and looking at him with fear in his tearful eyes. “Mon… monster?”

Taiki immediately realized his mistake and began to clarify, “not like an actual monster, more like a very skilled person! I meant it in the way that people call come heroes monsters on the fight and angels with the people, yeah? You are just very skilled with the flute!”

Izuku’s demeanor changed within moments again, looking up at Taiki as if he had become his savior with just that clarification. “Do you truly mean it that way?”

“You’re the kindest kid I’ve ever met Izuku, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Throughout the months since he’d installed Instrumental, Gyomei had worked long and hard on making sure everything was perfect. The digital singers he “created” sounded virtually identical to the people they emulated, and in some notebooks he had written in crayon and pencil note after note and lyric after lyric.

He wanted everything to have meaning, from the instruments to the order of the songs. He already knew what tittles his first songs would have and in what order they would be, and he had an idea on what instruments and style to have for the 9 songs.

First would go Kanae and Shinobu—Flower and Insect—with a violin playing softly for Kanae and a cello forcefully playing high notes to emulate it. It would start with a harmony of the violin and cello, joining the high and low notes as they were supposed to be until the violin abruptly cut off… and the cello would strain itself trying to replicate the violin’s part of the harmony and eventually its strings would snap and it would fall silent as well.

Then Rengoku—Flame—with vibrant and lively drums would have the loudest song, one of joy and spirit that would have a motif which would continue on and exist in the background of every other song. Bright, passionate and inspiring as the song would imitate how the flame hashira held his head high with everything a hashira was meant to be, right until another abrupt end.

Tokito’s song—Mist—would be light and airy with a soft, distant piano. Drowned out, never concrete in anything other than the evasiveness of it all. No chorus and no concrete motif until the distance shorted off and the piano would take in a concrete melody composed from parts of everything before until his young and abrupt death. The shortest song of the album.

Iguro and Kanroji’s would be different songs—Serpent and Love, respectively—but both incredibly similar when it came to the harmony. The beginnings and genres would be complete opposites—with sweet and bubbly music for Kanroji and heavy metal for Iguro—but then he’d combine the motifs and instruments to make an identical duet highlighting the counterpart’s art until they both cut off in the end.

Tomioka’s was a challenge, but he decided to go with a bass for it. Water was simple on the surface, another sad song of grief and separation, but while the bass was a constant through it all and the instrument that played the motif it was also the quietest of them all. Tomioka had also written his own book, one far less known than Uzui’s but still impactful in the insight it provided of the silence he wrapped himself in, so he used that in the writing as the bass took over the motifs of other instruments that had once done a harmony with it.

Shinazugawa’s was loud and abrasive. Wind had an electric guitar playing mostly solo, but quietly in the background he added an acoustic guitar that tried to be like the louder, faster instrument. It was a rough exterior that hid a mourning older brother, with the electric guitar softening after a short duet with the acoustic guitar that suddenly cut off. In the end, Waterand Wind were set to last exactly the same.

The longest of the “solo” songs was Sound, for Uzui. It would be loud, complex and intricate. The start would be slow, quiet and stifled until the trumpets could be free to show off in a loud song of freedom and eccentricity. A shift from stifling oppression to radical freedom, lasting long as the only hashira from the Taisho era that survived through the years.

And then, sharing name with the album, there was the last song: Hashira.

Every major fight in order, spanning the losses of Kanae and Rengoku’s solitude to the hopeful victories of Uzui, Tokito and Kanroji, was included. Everyone sang together in their struggles and differences against the common enemy of humanity, with their respective instruments conjoining in a gloriously tragic harmony even as the instruments broke apart and the voices fell quiet forever. It was the only song Gyomei saw fit to include himself in, with an old tsakuhachi playing in the background a repetitive melody as his prayers and devotion and another virtual singer to have his voice.

The lyrics were harder to create, but he decided to share everything like folk songs where the characters were what was listed in the titles. It would seem more fantastical, but music operated on a metaphorical and symbolized way that nothing else could really achieve to transmit.

“Izuku! Kyoka-chan is here!”

He turned away from the computer, blinking the office door into focus after maybe two hours of being on the computer (it was actually 6 hours, he's not fooling anyone) and he replied, “coming!”

He saved his progress, placed his notebooks on a drawer, moved Nibbles from the keyboard as she'd taken to doing the second he wasn’t using it and turned it off.

Kyoka was already looking at him when he walked into the living room, sitting on the couch with a large bag filled with clay of plenty of different colors. “You look like you haven't slept in a week Izuku-kun, it's kinda unflamboyant,” she snorted.

“You say that and your eye bags are worse than mine,” he chuckled.

Kyoka gasped dramatically, almost as if he offended her entire bloodline with that comment. “You are not a true friend, how dare you insinuate I look like a raccoon! If anything, I'm the most flamboyant peacock in the world and you're the grass under my feet.”

Izuku started laughing, “but I never said anything about animals. You're the one calling yourself a raccoon, not me!”

“Shut it grass,” she flicked his forehead, “wanna play or not? I'm not getting any younger sitting on my bum here.”

He squinted, looking at her with a raised eyebrow. “Aren't you like three?” he asked, “if you got any younger you would disappear!”

“Nuh uh, I'm already four!”

“Really? Since when?!”

“Since I've sat down here to do nothing at all and suffer in my boredom in this couch, oh if only we could do something Izuku-kun!” She proclaimed loudly, dramatically dropping herself onto the couch like the female love interest fainting in one of the over complicated dramas Izuku’s mom watched.

“You are very dramatic—”

“flamboyant”

“—same thing, but fine. What do you want to do?”

Kyoka shrugged, and Izuku looked at her the way a single girl dad looked at his daughter when she did his makeup and then wanted to show the neighbors; a real story based on his neighbor's greatest shame.

“I brought some clay but I think that would make a huge mess, so maybe we can draw something and watch TV?” She offered, putting away the absurd amounts of clay that made Izuku fear how much clay she actually had.

“I can go get some crayons and pencils then, you can choose what to put on the TV if you want Kyoka-chan,” he offered, pointing back at his dad's office. Kyoka nodded and took the remote, so he went and took two pencils, some paper and as much crayons he could hold with his small hands.

Kyoka had put on the news, but it wasn’t in another one of the channels that talked about All Might, All Might and more All Might. It showed a younger hero, one barely in his twenties with long, blond hair pulled back and a dark uniform with a flame jacket over it—as he stopped a villain with a thick hide that stopped most attacks with just an impossibly loud scream.

Izuku set down the materials on the floor in front of the TV and asked, “which hero is that?”

“Present Mic, he begun independently this year but he's really flamboyant,” she explained, barely even looking up as she took one of the pencils and a piece of paper.

He hummed in reply, doing the same thing but stealing short glances to the TV. Present Mic was then doing an interview, presenting himself to the press and confirming that he had been one of the recently graduated UA students and more specifically the second place at the previous sports festival. He was loud and cheerful in a way that calmed everyone down with his presence, it actually reminded him quite a lot of Rengoku.

Kyoka stared at him, completely unsurprised. “You're the second most teary person I've known.”

“What?” Izuku wiped his tears away before they landed on the paper, almost too confused to speak, “who's the first then?”

She didn't reply immediately, looking away with a frown before changing her demeanor drastically to hide her sadness. “A big baby. The biggest in the whole world, in fact.”

“Huh, I thought you were going to say something worse to be honest,” was all he replied, deciding against pushing further on the topic.

They continued drawing quietly, both of them listening to Izuku’s mom work on their lunch for later and the TV. The silence wasn't tense or awkward, as Kyoka's parents had called it once, but just comfortable. They could easily spend hours at a time doing something together without having to talk about it all the time, and Izuku really preferred it that way.

“Hey, so what are you drawing Izuku-kun?” Kyoka asked after almost thirty minutes, setting down the nub of a red crayon on the floor. “Are you already finished?”

“Almost, I'm imagining my hero suit for when I'm older,” he replied, comparing the yellow and green crayons for a part of the drawing.

“That's so flamboyant, I did the same thing! Come on, show me!” she cheered, jumping across the room fast enough that Izuku could barely avoid her, using total concentration breathing just in time.

He pulled the ugly drawing close to his chest and shook his head. “You draw way better than me, so you'll say it isn’t flamboyant enough and change it entirely either way! I like it the way it is,” he admitted, looking away from her guilty face.

“Yeah, I'd definitely do that… I won't budge if you don't want me to, in that case! Because unlike others I am a good friend and don't imply others look like raccoons,” she smiled cheekily.

Izuku rolled his eyes. “I never implied that, and you're the one who refuses to tell me your birthday!”

“Well yeah because then you'd know when I got older. It isn't flamboyant to call a lady old, you know Izuku-kun?”

“Fine then, I'll just ask your dad when he comes for you later. I'm certain he has great stories about you as well!”

“Don’t do that! It's August first! August first, you traitor!”

Chapter Text

That night Hisashi arrived home completely sick of heroes, the outside world, idiotic villains who couldn’t even finish their job right and for some reason having not-so-legally adopted a kid as the greatest threat in Japan. Even so, when he stepped through the door of the small house he lived in with his lovely wife and son all his worries and ire faded into nothingness.

“I’m home!” he called out, slipping off his shoes and placing them on the shoe rack.

The house had a nice air to it, and by using an emotion detection quirk he could feel Inko’s pride and joy next to Izuku’s contentment. Hisashi quite enjoyed those days when his boy was not sad or gloomy in his silence, the ambient of the house completely changed when he enjoyed himself.

“Welcome back! We’re in the living room darling,” Inko’s sweet voice ringed out from across the house.

Hisashi walked in to find Izuku eating takokami gohan with all the enjoyment in the world, almost as if he was an actor in a food ad. He didn’t even look up from his plate, barely pausing his food-inhaling to greet him and then resuming his enjoyment.

“Did you have a good day sport? Kyoka-chan came over today right?” he asked, giving himself a serving of the mixed rice and sitting down at the table.

“Mhm,” Izuku hummed, this time actually ceasing his ravenous eating to deign him with a response. “She showed me this new hero while we were drawing, and then we also made some clay figures,” he explained curtly before returning to his plate.

“That’s nice. What did you two make?” Hisashi asked, completely ignoring the part of the hero for his well being and the continued existence of the table.

“We drew our hero costumes for when we are older and then she made a decorated crow with the clay and I made Nibbles,” he explained between bites.

Inko laughed from the other side of the table, soft and kind. “Izuku has a talent for art in general, even if he denies it. The figure looks identical to the cat, let me tell you.”

“Moooooooooom!”

“Oh shush Izuku, you are good at what you do and I won’t let anyone put my son down; and that includes you,” she chastised, pointing at Izuku with her chopsticks. The kid only mumbled under his breath a quiet “yes mom.”

“Oh? Did you keep the figure then?” Hisashi asked teasingly, wiping off grains of rice off Izuku’s chubby face.

“It’s in his room, if you wanted to know. But not during dinner or I’ll add wasabi to your lunch for tomorrow,” Inko threatened with a smirk.

“Ugh, wasabi should be considered a war crime on itself.”

They all finished dinner together and then Hisashi went to Izuku’s room to find Nibbles glaring hatefully at a light pink copy of herself that sat on the bedside table.

“I am sorry Mrs. Midoriya, but your son doesn’t have a quirk.”

Inko’s chest constricted in on itself, making it harder to breathe the stale hospital air. “He— he doesn’t? But I thought…”

“I thought everyone had a quirk,” Izuku finished for her, far more composed than she ever could be. His voice didn’t shake, nor was there a single tear on his eyes.

“Almost everyone has a quirk. Statistically, 20% of the population is quirkless but those people are mostly of my age or from larger countries with much more people,” Doctor Ujiko explained, almost too sympathetic for her liking.

“He’s shown plenty of early signs of many quirks! Strength, intelligence… are you certain it can’t be one of those at all?”

The doctor shook his head, pulling into his computer screen a radiography from Izuku’s foot, his lungs and a scan of his brain activity. “Your son does display exceptional brain activity for a four year old child, and his lungs are the most developed I’ve ever seen in my entire career. However, neither of these are part of a quirk as the sure sign of a quirk is to only have two toe joints on the pinky finger. Izuku has three, and as such is medically quirkless.”

Quirkless. Her son was quirkless, and he wanted to be a hero. He wouldn’t be able to be a hero, not when facing against villains who could resist fire and contort bodies, and not when compared to kids like Katsuki who could make explosions from the palms of his hands or Kyoka who could listen to anything and everything that was in the same city as her.

That was the first time she heard Izuku pray, as he muttered the words under his breath as if that would miraculously solve all of his problems. “I’ll just work harder then, if I can save at least one person it will be worth it in the end,” he resolved, speaking of the most unrealistic dream Inko had ever heard.

“He’s quirkless?”

“That’s so sad!”

“I thought Izuku-kun would be a great hero one day…”

“I didn’t even know it was possible to be born without a quirk.”

“My dad says people born without quirks aren’t even people.”

Katsuki looked at Izuku with wide eyed surprise. They were lying, all of those other kids had to be lying. Izuku was going to be the best hero in the shadows, while Katsuki would be recognized as the number one of Japan and then the world. Them calling him quirkless would be saying that he lied, that he was weak and he would never be a hero.

He walked over to Izuku, ignoring the whispers the teachers tried to hush and the stolen glances to the corner his taller friend was at. He was playing that flute by himself, repeating one same tune time and time again while changing little things that Katsuki couldn’t pinpoint in the way he played it.

“Izuku, the other crybabies are saying you don’t have a quirk. Why are they lying?”

Izuku looked at him, stopping the song he was playing with sad eyes. “They aren’t lying Katsuki, I don’t have one.”

Katsuki felt his eyes begin to water but he didn’t cry. Instead, he clenched his fists and grit his teeth. “Then why did you lie? You promised we would be heroes together! You broke our promise!”

“I didn’t lie, I’ll still become a hero. I just have to work harder than others for it.”

“LIAR! STOP LYING YOU MEANIE!”

Katsuki began crying, and the teachers had to separate him from Izuku so he wouldn’t hurt the quirkless weakling.

On December 14 of 2241, an album called Hashira was suddenly released by the mysteriously named “Monster” on several music and video platforms.

The album had a simple cover, composed of professional clay sculptures of 9 smiling people in 9 squares—from a teenage boy with long hair to a young woman with three braids and the most contagious expression of joy—with different colors and elements in them fitting the titles of the songs composing the album.

The songs each had different singers and musical genres, ranging from classical choir to band or J-pop to heavy metal. And each song with its own motif and signature instrument. It didn’t take long for it to be called a musical masterpiece.

On YouTube, the music videos were simple, only being a compilation of clips from the name of the song adjusted to fit the rhythm. In the end of them all, there was a short message, saying how they were all so brave and far too young.

The final song of the album could be described both as epic and tragic, detailing great battles with passionate composition and mourning the deaths of those who gave it their all in them.

YourLocalHomo
Who the FUCK was hiding Monster from me and why do their songs hit so close to home?

DesperationInNegation
I need someone to cook and join Love and Serpent by Monster ASAP. This shit is driving me mad and I need it injected onto my mortal bloodstream YESTERDAY

ABCDFuckYouThen
MONSTER! DROP ANOTHER ALBUM AND MY LIFE IS YOURS

Queerios
Lmao we're bringing back pre-quirk era tumblr humor for this? Things are getting lit over here

ChaChaRealsmooooooooth
What’s next? We’re bringing back vine for this?

EndeavwhoreHater1
“And I live on, listening by myself as each and every heart fades out with an untimely end”

Alright, pack it up skittle squad. We’re hitting the noose tonight.

BringBackGoodAnimation
You can’t just drop banger lyrics without tagging the song you monster

YourLocalHomo
I’m saving you with this, it is Sound by Monster but don’t listen to it unless you want to hit the noose too.

BringBackGoodAnimation
Lmao Monster’s songs can’t be that sad.

BringBackGoodAnimation
Well, It was nice knowing you people. I’m not missing this hellsite at all but my heart is currently stabbed by a twisted knife and smashed by an unkissed brick.

YourLocalHomo
I told you, you pigmy sauropod

In a small, cramped office in the Musutafu Police Department, a young hero with an unkept appearance was doing paperwork for the last few villains he'd arrested the night before.

Now then, that didn’t mean he hated his job; he just hated the paperwork, the press, the chatterboxes, the attention and the idiots that didn't know when to pull out of the fight. Being a hero was great! He got paid and recognized by the government to do what he would've done either way, he got to help people and he got to do something that didn’t involve fixing his sleeping schedule.

“Wow, it sure is lively in here Aizawa. Are you still sure you didn't escape a morgue?” detective Naomasa mused as he walked into the room, taking a look at the absurd amount of paperwork littering his life.

He looked at the still hopeful detective as if he was mad. “I've died once before and I'll do it again if people keep bursting in to my private space,” he deadpanned.

“Okay… I'll just put on the radio here and get you your coffee before you murder me,” the detective wisely decided.

The radio didn't have anything particularly good, some drab sports news, the same songs they always played, some gossip and the usual boring slop. Still, Shota let it play in the background as he continued working.

“—a particularly requested song from the last week: Water, by Monster!”

It started slow, quiet and innocent. He hadn’t heard the song before and had to admit it was not bad so far, then the lyrics began and he almost chocked on his water when he heard his own voice singing. Not Shota Aizawa's, but Giyuu fucking Tomioka’s.

And it could have been a coincidence, just an artist 300-ish years later with his same voice but no. Giyuu heard the lyrics, he understood that the water from the song was the water hashira he used to be; and still was in a way, as he continued donning an identical uniform on himself.

That actually managed to make him take a break to search for more songs of this… Monster, so he could figure out who they were before.

The radio station always had something happening in there, from his show every morning to the desperate team working in the shadows to keep all afloat.

Hizashi loved the part of the job that had him answer his listeners’ questions. Most were simple questions from kids, asking how to become heroes or some silly interview question that not even reporters would dare to ask. The hardest part of it all was when a kid accidentally admitted to abuse and he had to react accordingly, keeping the child on the line and sending people far more qualified than him to help them; but in the end, helping another child get a better living situation was by far the most rewarding part of keeping a radio station.

“Hello little listener! What is your song request?” he asked, picking up on the line.

A little girl replied from an old phone, distorting the audio ever so slightly, “hi! Could you please play Flame, by Monster? It’s my favorite song!”

Hizashi smiled, even if his show was by radio and nobody could see it. “Of course little listener! Take care of yourself and have a great day!”

His team added the song and he could kick back for a few minutes and continue planning the program. It was a loud song, lively and the feel-good type that could make anyone crack a smile and enjoy life to the fullest.

The lyrics began and Kyojuro had never turned his head around so fast in his life, listening to his own voice narrate his old life like a folk story.

“How…”

“Is everything alright, Present Mic? You seem shaken,” a young intern from his team asked from the door, barely peeking in. “Should we add another song after this one to give you more time?”

He regained his composure and shook his head with a smile, “not at all! The singer’s voice was simply very familiar, but you don’t need to worry.”

That night, after hero work and a charity event he hosted he dropped on the bed next to his beloved fiance.

“Long day Kyo?” Giyuu asked, shuffling closer to him.

He hummed, enjoying the feeling of his toned muscles under his embrace. “You will not believe what song a listener asked from me today.”

“Maybe, but I did also have an odd experience with a song today,” he admitted.

Kyojuro raised an eyebrow, grinning playfully. “Does that mean you finally took a break from work?”

“Don’t get to excited, it was only for 15 minutes,” Giyuu rolled his eyes playfully.

“I did not think you actually would. What was it now? You can’t leave me with the doubt!”

“The song was called Water, I think, and the artist was this Monster guy. Well the radio played the song and then I heard my voice from the Taisho era so that was something, it described pretty much everything I went through and how I coped with my feelings too.”

“That is practically what happened to me! A little listener asked for a song from the same artist and I heard myself sing it! Do you think it's because someone else was reborn?”

Giyuu shook his head with complete certainty. “I don't think so, I know so and it was Himejima-san who wrote them.”

Kyojuro tried to respond, but his voice completely failed him and left him sputtering as Giyuu stole all the blankets and went to sleep.

The infirmary at UA was a recurred spot between the heroics students with absolutely no survival instinct and the support students who made more accidental bombs than actual working devices. In short, Chiyo lived taking care of incredibly promising idiots that insisted they were fine while sporting a concussion.

Thankfully, as the work day was finally over she could take the train back home and take things easy in her solitude. Perhaps it would have been quicker to drive back, but her road rage was certainly better to keep hidden from the world. So now, she waited at the station in her day to day clothes for the train to arrive.

The station was packed to the brim, with barely any space for her to stand and no opening to see if her train arrived. Two teenagers who definitely shouldn't have been smoking were smoking next to her, and when she commented on the health risks they said she should “loosen up” and “stop meddling, she wouldn't get it.”

Well fuck them and their lungs in that case.

The song changed to a much calmer one, a beautiful harmony of a violin and a cello. It tranquil, soft and genuine unlike the others that sometimes played over the speakers with unnecessary vulgarities.

The train arrived and she sat next to the door. And as the doors closed, two voices began singing, hers and Kanae's.

Shinobu couldn't find that song later when she looked for it, but she knew it was real and somebody else had been reincarnated.

Inasa hated Endeavor. Hero his ass, that bastard only cared about beating up people and having power.

“Oh but he’s the number two hero though!”

Shut the fuck up, he was a villain in disguise that’s what he was. And those eyes… ugh, they were just like Kyogo’s in the way he looked at everyone like they were less than the maggots eating away at the corpse of decency and the dirt beneath his feet.

So there he was, throwing away all the merch he’d bought when he was an idiot and thought it was nice that he could be such and efficient “hero” with his hotter-than-fire temper. What a load of bullshit.

The mall’s charity center was mostly empty, so it didn’t take him long to dump the trash bags full of the fiery shitstain in society. “Miss you never, damn bastard,” he grumbled under his breath, looking at the volunteer take away all the wasted money into the back of the establishment.

His mom was waiting outside, making a line for some coffee and tea at the coffee shop across the hall. He walked back out into the mall, clenching his fists until his knuckles were white and kicking a coin into the path were hordes of people were going on with their lives.

There was a song playing midway through, progressing with a heavy guitar solo over the incessant talking. Damn good song actually, just his style.

The singer had his voice, and Sanemi froze as the lyrics overshadowed a quiet pleading from Genya.

Who the fuck wrote that and how did they know his suffering so well?

Still, a few hours later when he continued thinking about it in a more calm mindset, Sanemi felt a little better knowing he wasn’t the only one to be reincarnated.

The Wild Wild Pussy Cats were currently training by themselves, stretching their muscles until their ligaments snapped (save for Yawara, who was fighting against one of Ryuko’s earth monsters since his quirk made it so that he didn’t need to stretch) over Tomoko’s playlist.

The songs didn't have anything particularly order, let alone a set genre or style. It was just an “oh hey! I like this song so I'll add it to the poor Playlist who is already suffering from how many songs I have stuffed in there!” Still, they were certainly upbeat and had a good rhythm for training so it was the designated playlist for that, just as Yawara’s was the best for relaxing and Shino and Ryuko’s were interchangeable for driving.

“Can’t you push any deeper? I’m barely feeling the burn,” Ryuko mentioned offhandedly, earning her horrified stares from her teammates. “What? Do I have a bug on me?”

“If reality is a simulation then yes, because Yawara’s the one with the flexibility quirk, not you!” Shino screeched, raising her hands from where she was pushing Ryuko downwards from the splits over two chairs.

Yawara turned around when he heard his name, and in that second of distraction he was almost blown away by the earth monster—which was one of the smaller ones, only the size of a hill—before he broke it into pieces with a stick, out of all things.

“Did you need me for something?” he asked, placing some ice on a sore spot from where he was thrown into the ground. “I heard you call my name.”

Tomoko shook her head with a slightly worried expression, still saying, “it’s nothing, we’re just worried about why Ryuko can go so deep because it isn’t as if she has your quirk.”

He hummed, placing his hands on Ryuko’s calves and pushing her down until she was actually touching the ground and only then began showing minimal effort and discomfort. “Oh yeah, that’s good. Thank you dear!”

Shino’s stared became blank and defeated as her brain short-circuited from the confusion.

“She’s always been flexible, if you were wondering,” Yawara shortly explained, keeping down the pressure on Ryuko.

“That’s… nice?” Tomoko hesitantly added, and Ryuko turned to her and nodded happily.

The song changed to another, having an upbeat and bubbly tone and a feminine voice Obanai could recognize anywhere. He didn’t react outwardly, only pursing his lips together and looking at Ryuko—Mitsuri—to see how she reacted as well.

“That’s a really nice song Tomoko, who’s the artist?” she asked, bobbing her head to the beat and stopping for an instant as another voice—this time a man’s—joined in a duet.

Tomoko went back to normal instantly, happily replying, “it’s from Monster! They appeared out of nowhere a few months ago and dropped an entire album without any previous fanbase. Still, all of their songs have—”

She continued on rambling about the artist, describing a few of their other songs, their style, the fan theories, the possibility that they had a voice altering quirk or were an entire band, a mysterious ninth voice that was the only one who didn’t have a dedicated song.

Mitsuri looked at Obanai with a hopeful gleam in her eyes. Someone else was reborn, it said to him, we are not alone in this. He could only smile, softening his eyes at her and gently nodding.

Driving back from the hospital, the water hose duo brought their newborn son home and began with their official 4-month hiatus from hero work to be there for him.

Kota was a quiet child, only judging everything and everyone with his gaze the same way someone would expect from a teenager. He didn’t cry, not loudly at least. He’d only done so once, the moment the doctors gave him back to his mother as his eyes took a different light and experience.

A lullaby began playing on the radio, with a distant piano and the faded voice of a young teenage boy telling the story of the mist trying to find its shape.

“—and I forget, change go live. Second by second is how I go and come from here to there, back and fro—”

Muichiro cried, because in his mourning mind still fresh from death the singer sounded like Yuichiro.

Scrolling through YouTube in the dead of the night during another bout of sleeplessness, Kyoka found an interesting video.

The thumbnail was of a very familiar looking man, with bright blue fireworks on the background and hot pink ones over the sculpture. So, with Tengen’s curiosity piqued, he decided to plug in their earphone jack and play the video.

It was an incredibly flamboyant song, detailed to the smallest detail and she didn’t fail to notice the sadness the vibrancy hid. She noticed the song was stifled, as if it was covered by thick layers of fabric and forced to blend itself in with all the others. But it wasn’t like the others, and the story it talked of wasn’t like others.

FlamboyanceReborn
Who would have thought you would write a song before me Himejima-san? I’m thoroughly impressed!

Monster
Hello, Uzui-san.
It has been a while.

Chapter Text

“He's getting closer to you. You can't continue staying with your family anymore,” the doctor said.

Hisashi took a deep breath, straightening himself further and clenching his fists. “I can loose that oaf, there is no need for me to abandon them.”

“You can do one or the other, not both,” the doctor repeated, pushing up his glasses. “And if you could, neither your wife or your boy have preparations or the reason to be careful of the heroes. Just one comment from the boy would be enough to send the entirety of Japan's law enforcement your way.”

Hisashi stood up and walked away, passing through the various tanks with brain-dead people waiting for the right moment to live again. He stood over the balcony overseeing the installations, the sickly blue light from each tank and the deep smell of chemicals ingrained in every crevice.

He spent hours there, a mere instant for his extended life, thinking about what the doctor said. He knew Garaki was right, his presence in their life was enough to put them at risk; still, he didn't want to leave them.

Garaki quietly walked in, and for a while he didn't speak to avoid his ire. Eventually, Hisashi was the one to speak, “do you think they'll forgive me for it?”

“They'll understand, it's for their safety.”

Two months after Hisashi's disappearance he was presumed dead.

Inko’s heart was broken. Her husband, the strong, kind and unforgettable love of her life just left for work one day and never came back. Gone. Disappeared. Dead.

And Izuku wasn't much better off either. Her son closed himself off, crying for everything little thing that happened and practically only speaking when he prayed. His eye-bags grew worse with each night, even through the day he hid himself away on his computer—one of the last gifts from his father, gods—and stopped talking to Kyoka.

The funeral had been quiet, solemn and dark. Inko’s own tears were the loudest, but Izuku’s were the most plentiful. No casket, no burial, just a memorial service.

Izuku’s friends were also there. Katsuki was as quiet as he could be, but he didn’t understand death yet—they were only five or six, after all. Kyoka, however, was just there. Quiet, respectful, didn't push and didn't leave. She acted as if she had lived through it before, more times than anyone ever should loose people and still knew how to push through it.

In the following months, it was also Kyoka who managed to pull Izuku out of his shell again. Her kid was still different, with a deep air of sadness around him—of course he was sad though, quirk discrimination was at an all time high and he had just lost his father, no child could push through it—but he went out at times, talked about his day or his songs at times.

And Inko knew that healing wasn't linear, but it was there and that was what mattered.

“Oh Hisashi, Izuku was grown much more mature than any child his age ever should,” she murmured at the picture on her bedside, lying down on a bed that felt too empty without him.

Izuku didn’t particularly like going to the park, especially after all the kids around had already learned that he didn't have a quirk. Either their parents didn't let them and spread the prejudice, or they didn't want to play with him. Still, he knew he had to get out of the house at times.

He didn’t mind the space he got, but he disliked the childish jokes and comments setting him apart. Auntie was the one that made him play with Katsuki, even if they no longer called each other by their names. So he followed around Katsuki’s friends and took it all with his head high, as he had always done.

Katsuki led the group over a suspended log, walking proudly with small explosions from his palms marking their pace. The other kids called him Kachan, but he didn’t bother the kid with the nickname, not when his own was Deku: useless.

Katsuki slipped on moss and fell to the shallow river below, a fall that could have certainly injured him or hurt him with ease. Izuku ran down the small hill, stepping into the coursing water and offering his hand to him.

“Are you alright Bakugou-kun? It was a tough fall.”

Katsuki—Bakugou—swatted his hand away. “I don't need any help, you quirkless Deku,” he snapped. “Just leave me alone already, it's not my fault you have no friends other than ears.”

There was some cruelty in Bakugo that wasn't there before, an ego fed by the same quirk discrimination that stomped over Izuku. He had tried before to cut the weed at its root, but the boy wouldn't listen to Izuku after his supposed betrayal.

Izuku took his hand back and nodded curtly. “If that's what you wish then…”

He went back to the park by himself, staying by the edge of the forest next to the path and still out of view from the park to avoid worrying his mom or auntie. He took his time to steady his thoughts, calm his breathing and pray in the silence.

Gyomei still felt that uneasiness Around children, but definitely far less than before. There was that part of him that felt better than before—though not quite ready to trust just yet—when close to children, a change caused by his last moments and an unsaid confession, but there was another part that was still unnerved with them and the thought that in the society lived as being quirkless brought him identical treatment that his very real and supposedly faked blindness did; the blindness that caused those children to die, as they didn't believe him capable of protecting them.

“What are you doing here Deku? Got lost?” One of Bakugou’s friends jeered, leaning over him.

He shook his head. “I was waiting for you, I didn’t want our parents to worry.”

Bakugou’s other friend scoffed, “yeah right, surely that was it Deku.” The kid opened his red, fleshy wings wide in an attempt at intimidation, grinning mockingly. “Stupid Deku can't find his way back.”

He didn't mind, not that much. He was used to comments about him, and he knew that if he denied it it got worse, even if doing nothing just kept it going.

Bakugou led the group back, and his mom said her goodbyes to auntie before leaving. The walk back was quiet, comfortable in the silence as the world began to fall still for the night and calm with the golden sun setting in the distance. The trees were large and bushy with vibrant green leaves swaying with the wind, and the songbirds took their branches for the night.

The streets were mostly empty by then, with the third year's UA sports festival happening at that moment. Izuku liked the city more when it was calm and still in that way, knowing that the people were at home with their loved ones looking at the promise their future held.

A guy ran down the street, clad in dark clothes and with evident desperation in him despite having his face covered; showing in the way his breathing was uncontrolled and heartbeat erratic. Behind him ran another man, who must have been still on the clock if his work uniform was anything to go with.

He put a knife against his mom's throat.

“Not another step, or this woman gets it!” He shouted at the empty street, the closed stores for the day and the anguish.

“Izu– Izuku—”

“Not a word hag! Damn it all!” The man pressed the knife against her throat, drawing thin droplets of blood over the cold blade.

His blood boiled under his skin, and the constant of total concentration breathing he had already managed to maintain for a few weeks straight made his veins bulge with strength. And in a moment, within a single breath, Gyomei resolved he would not allow to lose anyone ever again because of his weakness.

So he lunged, faster than he was used to seeing as the world blurred around him and he only focused on taking away the knife. He took the knife as he could, tightening his grip around the blade and throwing it away. He barely registered anything that wasn't necessary, only on the man who had the knife and himself.

His mom was further away then, next to the store clerk and safe. The man he tried to keep away screamed something, but his focus wasn't on his words, it was in the blinding flash of light that came from his eyes, obscuring his vision like when he looked at the lights on the ceiling but everywhere.

But it didn't matter; Gyomei knew how to fight blind.

He followed the man's heartbeat, breathing, yelling and desperation. When it came to it, what was hardest was to keep the fearful rage in him from making him act on instinct.

Keep him down, pin the limbs, don't punch don’t punch don't punch and stain your hands with more blood and death and guilt this is a HUMAN.

He didn't know for how long he kept the man pinned, but he didn’t stop struggling. At one point, his mom pulled him back and hugged him and the store clerk kept the man down. Sirens came, blaring through the street and the man was locked away as he was taken to a hospital with his mom on the ambulance to take care of his injuries.

Blind.

The word was whispered behind the closed door, from the doctor to his mom.

Izuku Midoriya was permanently blind from various flashes of light aimed directly at his pupils, damaging his optic nerves beyond repair.

It was frustrating, infuriating, vexatious and everything that spanned between that. It was unfair, simply put. After an entire life in darkness he had finally gotten to enjoy the light, but he couldn't get to keep it. Of course he couldn't, he made his way through life with tragedy after tragedy in every step of the way and that was all his path held for him.

The cries of his mom at night, and the silence at dinner without his dad. No more nights lighting candles up in memory of gone comrades, taking the light of the flame as the one of their passion.

He clenched his fists over his lap as he sat on the edge of the hospital bed, with his eyes pointed at nothing with tears flowing plentifully down his cheeks. Not even his prayers could still his mind with the revelation an knowledge of what was certain to come: the accusations, the jeers, the disdain and contempt for the supposed liar; and if being quirkless brought him treatment akin to his blindness in another life, then being quirkless and blind would make it worse by a long shot.

And hate was a strong word in his vocabulary; reserved for those who became demons willingly, enjoyed causing sorrow, went out of their way to ruin or take lives, committed inexcusable acts of evil and Kibutsuji Muzan. Of course, he also hated being blind again and being two steps apart from the world he lived in.

His mother walked in, waling towards him and hugging him tight. “I’m so sorry Izuku, I’m so sorry.”

And Izuku was afraid, afraid that if he got too close he’d lose her too.

For once, he allowed himself to be weak and express all the sorrow welled up within him to the world. And he just cried; for every loss and injustice he had to push through, he cried out in the arms of one of the only persons he hadn’t lost yet. 32 years of hardship, and that was the first time he let it all free because it was unfair and he was just so tired of all the trials and tribulations from fate at that point.

For just that moment, he allowed himself to be selfish in his grief and burden. He was just a man.

Chapter Text

Kyoka didn’t know what to expect when her mom told her that Izuku invited her over for the first time since his dad died. As mature as he was, he was only six years old! Unlike Tengen, who had lived 67 years without counting the second life and already knew how to cope.

Not to mention that Izuku and his mom had apparently gotten caught in the middle of a villain attack in which Mrs. Midoriya had her life at stake just a few weeks ago! After loosing a parent the fear he must’ve felt in that moment must’ve been extremely unflamboyant…

So now, Kyoka was going to the Midoriyas’ new apartment with a bag of cheer-up-for-a-moment cookies for the incredibly tall boy (seriously, what did his mom give him to eat?). She knocked on the door at the end of the hallway, looking up at an unkept looking Mrs. Midoriya with eye-bags that could rival a demon slayer’s.

“Hello Kyoka-chan, Izuku is waiting for you in the living room,” Mrs Midoriya smiled, but it was sad, almost worried and stressed. She had never been good with feeling talk, encasing everything as either flamboyant or unflamboyant with quiet support to the struggling person when they were close to them.

She only nodded and muttered quiet a quiet thank-you, stepping into their smaller home and finding the familiar unruly mop of green hair sitting on the couch, facing away from the door. Izuku’s heartbeat was fast, faster than normal as it was riddled with nerves. He fidgeted around with his hands, rubbing his palms together as he muttered familiar prayers under his breath.

“Hey Izuku-kun… how have you been? My mom told me what happened, are you alright?” she asked, sitting besides him on the couch even as he didn’t look at her.

Izuku took in a shaky inhale, bringing down his hands to his lap and turning away further from her. “Namu… Kyoka-chan you don’t mind my weakness, do you?”

She blinked in surprise and left the bag of cookies besides him. “Who would even say that?” she yelled, cracking her knuckles loudly, “I’ll punch whoever said that, was it those kids that follow around Bakugou-kun? I knew I didn’t like those quirkist, unflamboyant snot-faced brats!”

That got him to turn around in an instant, wide eyed and nervous as he sputtered denial and pleads for peace, “they didn’t say anything, so please don’t punch them, kick them, tattle on them or hurt them in any way Kyoka-chan!” But then, in the following moments he froze up, closed his eyes and turned away tearfully; more tearfully than usual, even.

“Okay, alright, I won’t hurt them. But why do you ask though? I’ve already told you that being quirkless means squat to me,” Kyoka sighed, laying back on the couch as he thought that kids were weird in good old-ass-man fashion.

“When the villain attacked he had this light quirk and it— it hit me right in the eyes…quite a few times… and now I— I can’t, exactly, well um… you get the idea,” Izuku explained, tripping over his own words in shame, nervousness and his tears, turning back slightly.

And alright, if that wasn’t the most unflamboyant thing Kyoka had ever heard she didn’t know what it was. He wanted to mention Himejima, about his flamboyant strength and resolution even through everything he went through his entire life, but at six-nearly seven years old she wasn’t supposed to even know of the book he had written before—even then, people took it all as fiction and added some hidden symbolism to Himejima he hadn’t even thought of—so she couldn’t mention him to comfort Izuku. At all.

“Thinking you are weak because of that sounds pretty unflamboyant to me,” she said instead, “and I mean it in the most respectful way but stop saying that! I have seen you run and react to things faster than some people with speed quirks, and you said it yourself after your diagnosis, you naturally have plenty of things that would be considered quirks if you had two bones less in your feet. You’re my friend, and I promised myself that I would smack any and every unflamboyant person that insults a friend of mine, even if it is a friend so pull that self esteem up and show everyone that you are going to be a hero!”

Izuku’s mouth fell wide open, and slowly he opened his green eyes— unfocused and blurry at the edges of the iris—to wipe away his tears. “Thank you,” he choked between sobs, “you’re the only person who has ever offered me such trust.”

Kyoka smiled and huffed, pulling Izuku closer and patting his back as he cried. “Hey, I know this is off topic but I brought some cheer-up-for-a-moment cookies, if you want.”

Izuku pulled away, holding back some laughter as he asked, “what flavor?”

“Chocolate chip,” she picked up the crinkly plastic-wrapped pack from the store. “Is that a yes?”

They ate the cookies together for the afternoon and Izuku completely and utterly defeated Kyoka in arm wrestling when they tried—even as she used total concentration breathing; constant to strengthen her muscles—but seeing the small smile on the kid’s face made the humiliation worth it.

But seriously, what did Mrs. Midoriya give him to eat?!

When All for One found out from his contacts in the underworld that a small time villain tried to kill his wife and hurt his boy he went absolutely ballistic. The idiot made his situation even worse when he tried to plead innocent and put the blame on his son via a lawsuit, when Izuku was just protecting his mother.

The cameras had been turned off with his electrical interference quirk, and he had all the guards on shift knocked out within moments by using a pressure point quirk with a speed quirk. And as he stepped through the cells full of frightened criminals who wouldn’t dare speak against him he knew the vermin of a man had better be grateful that he had dealt no lasting damage to them, as the CCTV cameras his contact showed him revealed.

“All— All for One, s-sir, what brings you here? I don’t have anything of value for yourself, not even my quirk!” the disgrace quivered, practically pissing himself in his place.

The villain didn’t deign a response, just as a god didn’t talk to the worms crawling pitifully in the mud.

None of the prisoners would ever forget the screams of pain as the man was ripped apart in a gory mess and pulled back together for more than an hour, and the next morning none testified about the massacre of the inmate who remained as nothing more than a dismembered body with blood splattered on the wall.

At the time that the school year began, Monster released a new album with just six songs in a similar format to the previous one, this time not being titled after elements and instead being called after members of a family with the final song being titled the same as the album. The songs spoke of loss from a child’s perspective, each song of a member of his family. The mother, the father, the older sibling, the younger one, and even a newborn child. The last song, titled “Family” spoke of the loneliness of a lonely orphan blind boy as everyone rejected him and he was all alone.

Monsterunderthebed
Hey so I know we all wanted another album from monster but I didn’t mean it like this. I DIDN’T MEAN IT LIKE THIS, TAKE ME OUT OF HERE ITS SO SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD

ClosetFu-
Lmao you a new-gen fan or something? The first album is literally just as sad dude

EndeavwhoreHater1
“Mom? Dad? Are you still here? You haven’t left me, have you?”
FUCKING HELL MONSTER, LET ME BREATHE DAMMIT

ChaChaRealsmooooooooth
Lmao you’re suffering in the same way you did years ago

BringBackGoodAnimation
Call me the friend that’s “too woke” or whatever, but Family talks about abandonment in today’s society because of quirklessness, represented by the singer’s blindness

YourLocalHomo
You are absolutely not too woke for this take but I offer as an extension: the villagers calling him a liar as a metaphor for people with “villainous quirks” who have done no wrong and still get treated like shit

SpeedyGonzales
Yo Socrates, its a fucking album about grief! It’s not that deep

ABCDFuckYouThen
NOT THAT DEEP?! DUDE, ALL OF MONSTER’S SONGS ARE DEEP AND SPEAK OF SEVERAL MODERN SOCIETAL ISSUES IN AN ANCIENT SETTING TO PORTRAY HOW HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF AND LISTS: EXPECTATIONS FOR WOMEN, BODY DYSPHORIA, SURVIVORS GUILT, REVENGE HEROES, DEPRESSION AND PASSIVE SUICIDAL FEELINGS, INABILITY TO PROPERLY EXPRESS LOVE, FORGETFULNESS AS A TRAUMA RESPONSE AND LASTLY MASKING FEELINGS TO COMFORT OTHERS INSTEAD.

IT IS THAT DEEP!!!!

Monster
Do you know if anyone else has been reborn thus far?

FlamboyanceReborn
Honestly no
But remember Yushiro? The allied demon from the final battle?

Monster
Indeed, he was also mentioned in your biography.
I know he is still alive, it wasn’t hard to find the pattern in his descendants, but he is inaccessible for any form of contact.

FlamboyanceReborn
Yeah, but before my death he told me he hoped that someday we’d all get reborn and that he’d be around then
Send him a message saying “pickled red’s and blue spiders”
He’ll answer then

Monster
I have several doubts, but why pickled reds?

FlamboyanceReborn
Because that’s how he and the other demon stored the kizuki’s blood
Like pickles in a jar

Izuku’s mom had begun working during the night to support them, sleeping during the mornings while Izuku was at school. At eleven years old, he had finally learned well enough the route to Yushiro’s home and back after getting in contact and getting the address.

He raised his hand and felt the transition from the concrete wall to the wooden door in front of him before knocking thrice. “Yushiro-san? Namu amida butsu, is this the right address?” he asked, taking out his phone and confirming with the neutrally electronic voice that repeated “you have arrived at your destination”.

The door creaked open with the unnatural presence of a demon as he remembered them—minus the bloodthirstiness—made itself known. Gyomei felt the demon’s eyes on him, and then the centuries old artist spoke up, “I didn’t expect you to be a kid.”

“It is not what I prefer either, but it is only for only a few years more.”

Yushiro groaned, stepping aside, “I should have asked before you came but never mind, lets not talk of this outside.”

The hallways were large and presumably lined with various doors, and their bare feet stepped over traditional tatami as he was more used to rather than the cold and hard ceramic. It was nothing alike the modern exterior his message had described in the inside, but his blood demon art was about concealment so it made sense he hid his old residence in such an inconspicuous way.

“You can’t be any older than 13, why do you even want to head into vigilantism so early?” Yushiro broke the silence, speaking his mind directly.

Gyomei murmured a prayer and replied tearfully, “although I am technically 11, I believe this world is riddled with unnecessary cruelty and I cannot wait any longer to do any difference for all the people who suffer from the extremist black and white view of today’s society.”

“11? That sounds far too young to be healthy."

“Had I had the capability to do so earlier I would’ve, but as it is there was not.”

Yushiro didn’t reply, but it didn’t take a genius to know he didn’t enjoy his answer. Gyomei knew the demon had also done some vigilantism, hiding from the government’s manhunt several quirked people who only wished to have normal lives.

“Would you prefer to use a kusarigama or another weapon?” Yushiro asked as he stopped, sliding open a shoji door and stepping in.

“A different weapon. Just a bokken would do, and I would be grateful if it could have a short chain at the edge of the tsuka,” he answered softly, awkwardly standing in the hallway.

Yushiro hummed in confirmation, “makes sense, breathing styles have very recognizable styles when done with a singular weapon. Are you planning to adapt it to a katana?”

“Indeed, the chain would remove my struggles with the blade but other than that I believe I’d have few complications.”

A loud clanking sound came from the room twice, making him flinch at the suddenness of it. Yushiro walked out with the bokken, a short chain clanking together with each of his steps. “Here, now come on. You still need something to hide your identity.”

The demon brought him to another room and invited him to sit down with some herbal tea while he searched for something that would fit him. A cat came at one point, purring on his lap until Yushiro came back after a few minutes and handed him some soft fabric in exchange for the feline. “It’s a pair of black hakama pants, a green casual yukata and a haka to hide your face, I had a feeling that you’d prefer more traditional clothing and it’s around your size. If you want to try them on I have a bathroom in the back of the room.”

Gyomei nodded and headed to change. The cut of the clothes felt familiar and the fabric was also soft, on top of that, the haka had a thin fabric lining it and reached to his shoulders and was likely opaque. When he walked out Yushiro explained, “I need some drops of your blood to connect it to my blood demon art, I understand if you don’t trust me in such a way to do it but it would make the fabric obscure your figure and the hat to fully hide your face at will rather than relying on me.”

“I do not mind, even if you used it for your needs Yushiro-san. I find that utilizing donated blood for your needs far better than taking it unwillingly.”

The demon didn’t answer, but he warned him that it would sting a little before taking his hand and pricking it for the blood to flow onto some papers. He then pressed them against all the garments and the chains of the bokken and they took an uncanny feeling for a few moments before it vanished.

“I am extremely grateful for your aid Yushiro-san. Do you need anything in return?” Gyomei asked at the door, dressed again in his other clothes and carrying everything—plus some normal zori that didn’t need anything changed—in a bag that apparently was invisible and hid everything that was inside of it.

“Just don’t dive headfirst into your death Himejima-san, I know how the mist pillar’s death made you feel and you are younger than he was,” Yushiro muttered from the door, mournful and pained. Being alone for centuries must have been horrible for him, even if Gyomei couldn’t understand it’s full extent he could sympathize with the demon.

“Do not worry for myself, I am aware of my limits and know when to pull back from a battle.”

Yushiro huffed, and as Izuku walked off he yelled back into the midnight, “and Himejima-san? Please tell Uzui-san to come by sometime, I have something for him.”

He turned back and nodded with a kind smile. And for the next hour he fought with the maps app until he arrived back home at two in the morning to be greeted by Nibbles having unapologetically taken over his bed.

Chapter Text

After a week spent adapting stone breathing to be able of being used with a bokken, thinking up routes to patrol where heroes rarely went but were still nearby and setting up a burner phone with his Monster money to avoid getting lost, Izuku slung the invisible bag over his shoulders and opened the window and jumped out to start his first night. He slided down with his arm against the building, careful with his fall after the disaster that could have easily resulted in the infinity castle had Tokito not been with Gyomei when the ground opened.

He ran through alleyways, straining his senses for anything that spelled danger like the metallic sheen of weapons being unsheathed, screams of fear, the odd, instinctual feeling of quirks being used. The night was quieter than he expected, with no cars running on the streets and barely any people walking back home.

He jumped on top of a building, steeling himself for the fall with the familiar vibrations of the chains showing him where the ground was. He jumped over a few of them, honestly feeling glad that there was nothing happening before he continued on over the rooftops.

The hairs on the back of his head stood on end, with a quirk being used a few streets down and a low thud. He ran over quickly, taking out his bokken and landing between a bloodied person with a horrified heartbeat loudly thumping and three villains, two of which had mutant quirks that gave them extra limbs or demon-like claws stained with blood.

“Namu amida butsu, what are you doing with this guy, if I may ask?” he asked, his voice coming out older, rougher, just like it was before he died and got reborn. Yushiro’s blood demon art was certainly helpful in that manner, it would have been harder to avoid speaking entirely.

One of the villains, angry and aggressive, yelled out, “hah? Where the hell did you come from? Get outta the way weirdo, don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong! Why do ya’ even care?”

“From the moment you stained your hands with blood it became of my interest. I ask that you refrain from dealing any more harm to this person.”

“Seems to me you wanna taste too, buddy, so why don’t we indulge lads?” the villain with four arms mused, flexing each of them to give brutal strikes at the ground he easily dodged. Without any need to use a breathing form, he simply striked back and knocked him unconscious.

The other two villains staggered, but the person behind him no longer sounded so frightened. The clawed man jumped at him, following the familiar and senseless motions of unpolished attacks relying on the claws exclusively. The other villain used their quirk, speeding up the attacking ally by a lot.

After dodging strike after strike, he positioned himself and thought: stone breathing; third form: stone skin.

The bokken blocked every strike as he passed it from hand to hand, turning it over unconventionally and even holding it by the chains. In a similar manner to the other guy, he swiftly knocked out the clawed man and the other person.

He sheathed the bokken and turned to the bloodied man, taking out bandages from the bag and tying them around the man's injured arm. “Are you alright? You have bled quite a lot, it would be better if you headed to the hospital to asses your wounds fully.”

The man nodded, quiet, shaky and breathless. He nodded back and slung the villains over his shoulders to take them to a nearby hero in patrol to arrest them.

“Wait!” The man yelled, just as he was about to jump. “Who are you?”

“Himejima Gyomei,” he replied after a few seconds of silence, jumping off into the quiet danger of the night without anything else to say.

Shota barely finished his blessed be coffee before a blue folder was unceremoniously dropped onto his desk. He looked up, tired and devoid of life in his stare, to see detective Naomasa equally tired. But he knew those were all lies, he didn't have to teach a haggle of high schoolers every morning, patrol every evening and some unholy hours of the night more often than not, and fight against angry drunks, gang members and drug dealers.

“What is this and why is it in my desk? I'm here to do paperwork, not your job Tsukauchi,” he complained, setting down the pink cat mug Kyojuro had given him and pushing away the folder on the desk.

Naomasa sighed, taking the other chair in the office that was still there after far too many attempts to remove it only for it to reappear the following day. “It’s from the commission; a new vigilante, from what I've heard. Unknown quirk, trained in some form of swordsmanship according to witnesses and goes by a real name.”

“Then why not look into it in the database? Sounds something easy for you to do.”

“We've already tried, there was nothing there. A fake name is our best guess, but it shows nothing of who he is. And still, it is your job and I've got piles of work waiting on my desk so… later Aizawa!”

Shota groaned, of course it wasn't that easy. He opened the file and saw a blurry CCTV image of an incredibly large and muscular man wearing traditional clothes, using a bokken as he fought a villain with a rhinoceros quirk to protect a crouched person behind him. A veiled haka covered his face, but he could still make out short, dark hair through the fabric and shadows.

Everything seemed normal enough; a few months active, a couple of suspected quirks and noticed physical traits, for example. At least it was normal right until he read the alias.

Himejima Gyomei.

Out of everyone he knew from the corps, Himejima was the last one Giyuu expected to do something public or attract attention to himself, but apparently the stone hashira decided to go vigilante without as much as a drop of stealth.

He stood up from the desk, headed to an empty room and took a coffee break since he couldn't scream it out the rooftops. He took out his phone, and sent Kyojuro a message.

Yuu
You’ll never guess what case I just got assigned.

Kyo
???

Yuu
Nvm
Tell you at home

Kyo
Yuu???
Pls tell me
Don’t leave me hanging!!!
＼(°ロ＼)(／ロ°)／

Katsuki was fucking sick of Deku.

Not only was he quirkless, but also blind; and that normally wouldn’t make him hate the boy but he despised his guts. He never gave up on that stupid hero dream of his even as life threw him down the gutter again and again to the point it was essentially suicide that he still thought he could even compare to the average person.

Deku was pitiful, crying by himself in the classroom and cafeteria after ears moved away and had to change schools. He had to take the exams separate from everyone, carried that bulky cane with himself even though he didn’t use it and spoke all high and mighty as if he had reached enlightenment.

Nobody gave a shit about the quirkless, blind Deku at Aldera. Most of the extras said he was faking it, that he could move around with ease and he actually just had weird eyes, a subpar vision and couldn’t read. Most teachers ignored him, only paying him attention when they took him out to give him verbal exams. Katsuki wasn’t dumb, the extras only held back from breaking his things because those were damn expensive and would be evidence for a lawsuit that would squeeze them out of every penny and opportunity to be heroes.

Not that any of those extras could, Katsuki was the only one with the quirk for it.

But he knew better than all those extras in the way that he knew Deku wasn't lying. He knew the damn mountain could read ever since he was a toddler, and he had seen him the day he went blind even! He knew his eyes weren't supposed to be that bone chilling white. He was blind, and he was quirkless, and those extras were feeding his ego by implying he was as good as any other extra when he was a useless idiot.

But it irked him that the old hag made him walk Deku to school every damn day, but if he didn’t she went fucking ballistic so there he was, waiting outside of auntie’s apartment for Deku at ass-o-clock in the morning. The tall nerd walked out of the building with his piss yellow backpack slung over his shoulders, stopping at the door of the apartment complex.

“Namu, Bakugou-kun?” Deku asked, noticing him from his purposefully loud ass breathing.

“Shut up Deku, who else would I be? Now get going, if I’m late because of you you’ll fucking get it,” he snapped, popping small explosions on his palms. Deku began crying, but didn’t say anything other than his damn repetitive prayers as he followed him on their way to school. As soon as they crossed the school door Katsuki abandoned Deku to fend for himself in the sea of teenage hormones and hate.

Katsuki was the first student to enter the classroom, followed by some extras close behind who weren’t worth his time. He sat on the back and rested his feet on top of the table, closing his eyes and waiting for class to start. Other students slowly trickled in, speaking loudly among themselves about anything and everything he didn’t care about.

The first bell rang, indicating five minutes remained until class started and the room fell uncharacteristically quiet as Deku walked in. He shuffled between the seats and sat on the only one that was clearly unoccupied: the one in front of Katsuki.

Katsuki tch'd quietly and the conversations began to pick up again, but quieter and more forced than before. The teacher walked in—right about time—and started calling attendance for homeroom, listing off the names of the extras he couldn't be paid to care.

“Now that that's done, it is time for today's topic. You are all growing up already and are in your last year of middle school, so it is time to get thinking in what you want to do when you're older,” the old fart began seriously, before changing his entire demeanor to a more cheerful one and exclaimed, “but who are we kidding, you all want to be heroes!”

Everyone began cheering and whooping, flaunting around their quirks in a chaotic celebration. Even Katsuki joined in, using his desk as a stepping stool and laughing maniacally with controlled explosions popping from his hands.

“Come on teacher, don't lump me in with these extras!” He grinned wildly, earning some friendly complaints from eyes and fingers apart from a few other extras in class. No shit though, he was the strongest in that entire hellhole.

The teacher shuffled between the papers with a proud smile on his geriatric face. “Bakugou, yes, you applied to UA's hero course, as we all expected.”

The extras began complimenting him, asking him to remember them and whatnot when he was number one. As if, they'd be lucky if he remembered their plain looking asses while he was at UA.

But the old geezer continued, much more quiet but still audible, “although it seems Midoriya has also applied there…”

“Haah? Quirkless Deku applied to UA?”

“I heard they began to accept quirkless applications, but I didn't think nobody would be stupid enough to try.”

“Hey Deku, weren’t you supposed to be blind? How will you pass the exam if you can't even pass the front door?”

“Honesty I feel kinda bad, he could easily die in the practical from how weak he is.”

“That thing is expensive! How will your mom even pay for it when she uses all her money on your supplies Deku?”

“Stop lying Deku, everyone can see through your underdog origin story attempts and they hurt to watch.”

“—useless—”

“—it’s just idiocy—”

“—how desperate does—”

Fucking Deku had everyone talking about that for the rest of the day, allowing all those extras to talk behind his back. Katsuki was supposed to be the only Aldera student to apply to UA!

Katsuki was all set to be the damn best, and that stubborn Deku was taking all the attention away from him!

“What the hell are you doing going to UA's exam, huh Deku?!” Katsuki fumed, dark smoke exiting from his hands as he threw onto the back wall the fool with a death wish.

“The same as you Bakugou-kun; attempting to be a hero.”

“You? Quirkless and blind, never fighting back or resisting against anything? A tough crowd in one of the hallways is all it takes to beat you, so why the hell do you think you could be a hero and save people?”

Deku's stupid crying face gave nothing away, even as he frowned at Katsuki over the background jeering of the extras. But he didn’t cry any more tears in that moment, nor did he continue those prayers like a damn boring monk.

The teacher only separated them to continue the shitty class, but the rest of the day Katsuki kept hearing about stupid Deku's suicidal dream. And as the school day ended and Katsuki was set to hang out in the afternoon with eyes and fingers, Deku was methodically putting away his bulky supplies on his backpack. On top of his desk there was a piece of paper noted with braille all across it, with a title also written in kanji that read “hero costume notes” at the top.

“Oho? What’s this Deku?” eyes took the piece of paper, flaunting it around in his hand.

Fingers laughed and leaned on the desk, “a hero costume? Do you really think you’ll be able to even pass the written exam Deku?”

Deku deepened his permanent depressive frown. “I ask that you return it Harada-kun, what I attempt for my future is none of your concern,” Deku said, all high and mighty with his “more holy than thou” narrative.

Katsuki scowled, taking the piece of paper from eyes and exploding it to the point that a breeze of paper could easily tear it apart. Deku flinched at the noise, clenching his fists until his knuckles were white for just an instant before he brought them together in prayer, murmuring something about Buddha forgiving them for their actions. As if he was any better!

“You know what all top heroes have in common? They all say they came from average middle schools, being the top and only from their own shitholes to climb up somewhere in life! I want to make sure the term “UA graduate” still maintains some prestige and is not just any idiot with a dream can get it. I am something of a perfectionist, you know?” Katsuki stated, throwing the ashen paper out the window to let it be carried off by the wind. He placed his smoking hand on his shoulder and pulled him down, “so what I’m saying is forget about UA! There are some pretty decent schools for disabled students around, so maybe try out for one of those.”

Deku cried but stayed quiet as they walked out the door, the two extras taunted and laughed at Izuku. At the door, Katsuki turned one last time to squash Deku’s fantasies for good, “you know? Maybe life would give you an actually decent set of cards if you took a swan dive off the roof and prayed real hard before it.”

That actually got another expression from the nerd, with bulging veins and wide eyes full of burning anger he replied coldly, “do not speak of what you do not know Bakugou, and do not slander the dead with your tongue lest you come to regret it.”

He rolled his eyes and walked out the school with the extras snickering close behind. They headed to the arcade, making their way through small streets because the extras wanted to take a smoke and Katsuki didn’t want that to be on his record.

“Hey Bakugou-san? You know of that vigilante running around Musutafu at night, right?” fingers asked, huffing out a dark cloud of smoke.

Katsuki raised an eyebrow. “That Himejima guy? Yeah, I’ve heard of him. What kind of idiot goes around fighting crime with a real name shown publicly?”

“His quirk’s pretty strong though, I’ve seen some videos online and he could easily be a hero,” eyes mused, flexing his bicep to showcase his point.

“He has a general enhancement one or something like that, right? Or was he the guy with the obscuring quirk?” Katsuki asked, not bothered enough to learn the extras power. If he wanted to be remembered then he should’ve become a hero instead of doing his shit illegally.

“Could be either of them, those are the theories people have about the guy. Nobody knows because he’s, well, a vigilante, and fights illegally,” eyes remarked, shrugging at the last part.

Fingers replied quickly, “definitely an enhancement quirk and some training, the obscuring probably comes from the clothes he wears, likely quirk enhanced.”

Katsuki and the other extra got whiplash from turning around so fast. “How are you so sure dude? Have you seen him or something?”

Fingers nodded, crushing the butt of the cigarette to stop the smoking as he dropped it onto the ground. “After a work dinner yesterday my dad was caught on a villain attack… this Himejima saved him before any hero and dropped the villains off on some hero’s patrol route before escorting him home. Hadn’t it been for him my dad would be dead for sure, vigilante as it may, he’s my hero.”

Huh, maybe that guy was actually worth more than Katsuki thought originally. He sounded pretty decent when put like that, but it didn’t take away the fact that he still did it illegally.

Chapter Text

Somebody was running around the sewers.

The familiar feeling of a quirk being used raised the hair on the back of Izuku’s neck, goosebumps running up his arms as he followed the sloshing sound from below with determination. The sound slowly came to a stop, but the feeling persisted as he walked over to a closed area where sound bounced off the walls.

Something metallic shifted on the ground, clattering over the rough pavement. The manhole cover opened, and out came a thick sludge that smelled distinctly like methane. “Well what do we have here? An XL-sized disguise offering itself right up…” the villain spoke, a sickeningly sadistic joy echoing around the walls with each word.

The sludge shot forward, and Izuku jumped over it and took out the cane he only used to avoid worrying his mom from the backpack, unfolding it in his hands. He had thought that when the news that morning spoke of a sludge villain that mean the villain could control sludge, not that he was the sludge. Too late to worry about it though, he was already stuck in the fight.

“Stop struggling boy! That guy is close behind and it’ll only hurt more if you resist!”

Sludge shot from behind, attempting to take him by surprise and failing as he broke it apart with a sharp swing. It continued to come from all directions, and no matter how much he broke it off from the distance it formed back together.

He had to head in close.

He jumped high, to the point his feet were against the top of the tunnel and he shot himself downwards with greater speed. He drove down to the larger mass his cane as a makeshift spear, using brute strength and gravity to impulse his strike and limit the regeneration speed of the villain’s sludge. Stone breathing; second form: upper smash!

Just as the goo broke apart and splattered the walls, not even with enough time to try and regain itself,the manhole was blown open and a large man stepped out. He proclaimed loudly, “have no fear, for I am— here?”

Izuku recognized that catchphrase from the thousands of times the number one hero had appeared on TV throughout his life. The hero turned to him, surprised into silence for what were some very awkward seconds. “Boy, did you defeat the villain?” All Might asked after the silence.

“He attacked first,” Izuku proclaimed stiffly and in a childish manner, quick to defend himself before anything could happen as he pointed at a random point in the ground with composure reminiscent to a deer in headlights.

The hero sighed, more so from relief that he was alright than the reassurance he was innocent. “I did not doubt that, this guy,” he began picking up and stuffing the sludge into a plastic bottle, “is a particularly nasty guy that thanks to you can finally be brought to justice, shut in this bottle right here!”

Oh, the hero already clocked in he was blind. It wasn’t anything surprising, truly, considering the prestige he had as the number one hero. Number one worldwide, last he checked. Izuku regained his composure, blinking away small tears and moving awkwardly to help seal off the entirety of the sludge. “I am truly grateful for your arrival All Might, there was nothing on my person to hold back the villain. I simply battled in the spur of the moment.”

“It is no problem boy!” the hero smiled, the gesture quite literally palpable in the air. “Say, are planning on becoming a hero? You certainly have the skills for it!”

Izuku nodded as he dropped off some on the sludge that tried to hold on to his gakuran. It was sticky, thick and disgusting as it left a persisting feeling on his skin after he let go of it. “I have hopes of entering the UA heroics program and become an underground hero some day,” he mentioned offhandedly before taking a deep bow. “Thank you for your assistance All Might, but I need to head home soon before my mom worries.”

The hero laughed, and Izuku didn’t miss the light wince and shift in his posture over his left side as he did. In fact, his breath was slow and shallow, with tense muscles during the entire interaction and clear avoidance on excessive strain on that side. “Of course boy! I’ll be off to deliver this perpetrator to the authorities!”

The hero stepped out of the tunnel and flexed his legs before jumping off and away into the sky, leaving small cracks on the ground where he stood. Izuku passed his fingers through his hair, letting out a shocked gasp he didn’t know he was holding in. He wasn’t particularly a hero fan, more so of a casual admirer of the profession, but he understood the implications of the symbol of peace hiding an injury of such deep severity.

Kyoka dragged on Izuku to the karaoke against his will, even as he dragged his step and insisted he preferred studying for the UA exam instead of actually doing something fun for once. They hadn’t even released the study guide yet! Izuku was just stressing out far too early on, and a break would do him good before he inevitably shut himself in when the time came.

“I do not know how to sing Kyoka-chan, please,” Izuku begged pitifully as it was too late and she was already walking into the karaoke room.

“Nope!” she finalized, sitting on one of the plush couches and tossing him over a tambourine that he sloppily caught. “Don’t sing if you don’t want to, but you have to take a break sometimes big guy!”

The nickname slipped off to easily, one Tengen only ever used in messages and was once reserved to the tallest man he knew as he tried to scale the walls around him. Izuku had more similarities to Himejima than what he preferred to acknowledge, and damn it he was not going to project onto the teenager his unresolved survivor’s guilt when the actual stone hashira was a message away!

Izuku took out his phone to scan the drink menu for him, settling for the same old simple lemonade he always asked for whenever they went out and there was no water mentioned on the menu. Kyoka herself asked for a fizzy drink, though not without poking fun at Izuku like the good friend she was, “you should try something else sometimes, you know? It’s always water, lemonade, water, lemonade, never anything fun. Where’s the pizazz? The flare? The pop? The flamboyance?”

“Back home with my cat and patience,” he deadpanned, hitting the tambourine once for comedic effect before dropping it unceremoniously on the plush couch. Kyoka snorted, taking the tambourine and placing it on his head like a crown.

“A crown, fit for his flamboyant majesty: the king of sass!” she cheered, giving a dramatic and western-style bow to her friend. Izuku raised his eyebrow dramatically, with the tambourine slowly slipping off his head until it fell with a thunk he didn’t bother to think twice on.

He took the queue tablet and wordlessly passed it over, almost telling her to just shut up and get on with it under the singular limitation that he would feel too guilty if he actually said that.

“Get ready because I’m about to present you to peak greenie,” she grinned, typing into the search bar only three words.

Epic the musical.

Shota was tired. He had spent three whole years already working on Himejima’s case and he still had nothing but questionable witness reports. Patrol after patrol, and change of route after change of route because the HPSC was dead set on bringing him to justice or whatever, as if Giyuu wouldn’t enter Himejima on the vigilante reform program the moment he found him.

He missed choosing his own salary, a truly wasted opportunity as he kept it at the minimum the master allowed him to. And now, working two jobs under a sadistic rat as a boss and a probably corrupt government organization for which he had no proof against, the master’s benevolence was but a distant dream.

The night was cold, with a bone chilling gust of wind piercing through his uniform’s insulation. He was trying out a new patrol the rat offered for his amusement, which meant it was going to finally earn him a break or send him on a wild goose chase.

The route went through empty streets where Himejima had never been found or suspected to be, blocks away from the places he had been spotted last. Still, Nedzu was due some credit as there were several villains hanging around that part of Musutafu, which he swiftly captured with his scarf and dagger.

Continuing with his patrol after the police arrived to capture a group of drug dealers, Shota heard a commotion a few alleyways down the road. He ran over quickly, total concentration breathing strengthening his legs and enlarging his focus to find a certain vigilante praying as he broke a gun under his feet, surrounded by various members of the Blue Ray gang unconscious or immobilized by pain.

Himejima tensed the moment Shota stepped into the alleyway, turning around with a hand on the chained bokken. “You are a hero, I presume,” Himejima spoke, his battle ready posture betraying his composed voice. It was identical to how it was before, uncannily so. He couldn't make out his face under the veil, nor his eyes, but he noticed it wasn't as rough as before too.

Giyuu relaxed his posture, showing calm and peace in whatever way he could. “I am not here to arrest you, in case you wondered. I just want to talk.”

Himejima let go of the bokken and shook his head. “If there is time to speak there is time to help,” he curtly replied, muttering prayers and jumping over a building.

He couldn't believe he was about to do that, but Giyuu jumped behind him, following him in fast pursuit. He felt like Kocho forcing him to interact with the hashira during meetings, or to speak to her during certain missions. So despite hating being on the running side of the situation, he still was cornering Himejima on it.

He still respected and admired the stone pillar, but as the older man slipped through cracks and between buildings in the dead of the night Giyuu couldn't help the thought of letting him go. There must be a reason for him to be a vigilante rather than a hero, he thought, he does it only to help people rather than the pay or recognition. He must have another day job and separates the day from night.

So Shota headed back into the alleyway, capturing the villains as they had just began to regroup and mentioning the escape of the vigilante to the police when they arrived. Himejima was still the strongest, easily. He was faster, definitely stronger if the muscles he saw during the escape were any indicative, and resourceful enough to adapt stone breathing to another weapon.

A message from Nedzu pinged on his phone: a singular smiling face.

That fuckass rat.

Gyomei pulled open the window to his room, sliding inside and dropping his bag with his vigilante clothes and medical supplies inside his closet. He was running short on bandages and disinfectant, and he could do with some extra burn cream too. Still, that had been far too close for comfort.

He didn’t think that too many underground heroes patrolled there, much less on the same area he had just changed to. By pure self control he didn’t actually say out loud that he wasn’t going back to jail, it wouldn’t have looked good for him at all. The hero sounded surprised when he found him, almost relieved. It didn’t make sense to him, especially when the man’s breathing didn’t betray him when he said he only wished to talk.

Izuku sighed as he walked into the shower, still closer to midnight than time for school. The cold water was comfortable, steeling his thoughts as he refreshed from the night’s exercise. Nibbles meowed at the door, clawing at it desperately. Izuku smiled at the thought of the desperate cat, walking out of the bathroom a few minutes later much with much more tranquility in his mind only to find Nibbles was stuck under the door.

“Namu, why are you like this kitty?” he quietly asked no one in particular, pulling Nibbles out from the way she entered as she yowled and clawed at the floor. “Please stop yowling...”

15 minutes later, with an offended cat claiming ownership over his pillow and a torn and broken bathroom floor. Izuku connected and hid the burner phone on the closet, using an old wireless battery that worked wonders. On his bedside table, just as he was going to lie down, his personal phone vibrated.

He took the phone and unlocked it with his fingerprint, quickly turning down the volume when it began to read the notification but was far too loud for it being the middle of the night.

“One new message.”

Why was she awake at… well, he didn't know the exact time but it was far too early in the morning.

He activated the voice command and quietly spoke, “read messages.”

Jirou Kyoka
UA study guide just dropped

UAstudyguide.pdf

Midoriya Izuku
Kyoka, why are you awake?

Jirou Kyoka
Why are YOU awake???
GO TO SLEEP BOY

Midoriya Izuku
I was just about to do so.
I just went to the restroom, why are you awake then?
Answer the question, Kyoka-chan.

Jirou Kyoka
No thanks
I’m good without you judging my life choices

Izuku pinched the bridge of his nose, leaving the phone back on the bedside table on the opposite side to his thermos half full of water. He sat on the edge of the bed, clasping his hands together and praying to calm himself down from the recent encounter with the hero.

Before it was much more late than it already was, he stopped and tried to position himself in the bed comfortably without disturbing Nibbles. In the end, he was curled up between the plush blankets with his bare feet hanging from the edge and the cat taking up the other half of the bed like royalty.

Chapter Text

It had been unexpected when the required reading for the exam was Uzui’s book. He had read it during his first nightly escapades; saw his thoughts and feelings expressed in paper and words through the screen. His mom had helped his download an audio book version on his phone, and sometimes he met with Kyoka in the library to read together.

Kyoka sounded really emotive about the book—even more so than Gyomei, who knew everything written in there was real—as she read it out loud with a cracking voice.

“Do you need a break? You don't sound so good Kyoka-chan,” Izuku asked, placing a hand on her shoulder. He felt the thick rivers of tears quietly fall down his cheeks, but before that he felt the slight shakiness of her tense posture.

She took his hand off from her shoulder stiffly after he felt the points of her hair moving up and down as she nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Don't worry about me it's just– why did it have to be so long? I can’t take 25 pages more of this depressive writing.”

He nodded, staying quiet and offering her a tissue from his backpack. “I think that was the point,” he explained, “to share the grief of loss and to keep the memory of those people alive through the story told.”

Because that was the point. War or demons, humanity still suffered loss, grief, pain and sacrifices because of the whims of the few who were privileged and did not fight. One started with the death of a man, and the other ended with the death of a monster; still, both passed through with freshly dug graveyards and families never getting to see their sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, families or friends ever again.

Every untimely death weighed on his shoulders. Use your bodies to protect the hashira! Gyomei had promised the master that he would ensure he was the last one to die with his sacrifice, and still, blood splattered on the floors and walls of the demonic castle with bodies piling up on the battlefield. Empty graves as the ones he passed after the meeting, multiplied in need overnight with stones marked by names he could never read and he never knew.

He felt undeserving at times of the second life, and thinking about it from an outside perspective it was fitting he was the last to die that night. He could never protect anyone and in the end, with Tokito and Genya ending right within his reach, and before them Kocho Kanae and Shinobu, with an earlier tragedy for 7 children.

“This thing will give me depression, I swear,” she grumbled, turning around the page loudly and dramatically and reading the next passage.

“There was this girl who knew Himejima before he joined the the corps: Sayo.

Sayo was a kakushi for a few years before the final battle, only 13 when it happened and after that she left to become a war medic. She knew Himejima since she was a toddler, living in a temple with 8 other children up until she was four and was with him when he died.

She talked to him shortly about what happened, receiving short, sad answers with his last breaths. He said something in the end, too quiet to hear or interpret but with what I knew of him it was likely he apologized, although she doesn't think so given the nature of their conversation.

According to her, Himejima was skinny and frail when he was young as food was scarce in the temple and he offered it to the children instead. Never raised his voice, didn’t know his strength, had every reason to be angry at the world yet he only tried to make it better however he could.

Quoting her directly, “A kind, selfless man with a warm voice as he did his best to raise 9 children that weren’t his on any right whilst in poverty. Other people didn’t believe in him, but we all loved him like our dad and that is what he cared about.”

Sayo herself is a good child, kind and honest. She said she’d never leave her words up to interpretation again, but when I pushed she avoided the question. We all have things we keep close to our chest, things we can’t put into words or simply can’t express in any way. That doesn’t mean we are selfish, in my opinion, it just means we are human tough and through, and that is the most flamboyant thing we can do.”

Sayo… she was there? He remembered hearing a familiar voice he couldn't quite place from his right before his senses muddled together entirely. She talked to him? He didn't remember that, he only spoke to the… oh.

When he spoke to the children's spirits as he was passing she must've thought it was to her. He didn’t know what she said… did she become a kakushi just to find him? She shouldn’t have, she should have just lived on a normal life without running through a battlefield with lives depending on her hands at just thirteen years old. But what did she say to him? To what did she think he responded? He knew logically that she didn’t mean that he was a monster when she landed him in jail, but what did she think of him as he died? Did she see him for the stone hashira that supported everyone or as the sickly thin man who took care of her the best he could?

“…what do you think Sayo talked about with Himejima?” Gyomei asked, with his hands clenched over his lap as the sickly sensation of breaking bone from himself and another came to mind against his will. He wished to go wash his hands, to clean the blood that had never stained Izuku’s body but was ingrained deep in his mind.

Kyoka leaned back on the library chair, bringing a hand up to comb her hair back as she sighed. “I… actually have no idea. I feel like it has too do with that about never leaving things up to interpretation, but what it really means completely eludes me,” she admitted.

The hardware store was largely empty when Izuku walked in; or better put, it was proportionately empty to its absurdly large size. He knew there were several aisles across the store, but the question was which one was the one he needed?

“Hello! Is there anything I can assist you with?” an employee asked, walking up from his left.

Izuku turned around and nodded. “If it isn’t a bother. I am searching for metal chains,” he commented, clasping his hands together softly.

“Of course! On aisle twelve to your right if you please.”

Izuku awkwardly lingered until he spoke up, “if it isn’t much problem… could you please take me there? I am blind but my “quirk” allows me to notice my surroundings to an extent, but writing isn't included…”

The employee didn't react immediately, most likely examining his eyes before acting. “I'm sorry kid, I didn’t notice earlier. Just follow me, okay?”

He nodded, thankful the employee didn't see through his lie and followed them. “If you don't mind, what's your quirk? It sounds interesting,” the employee asked. He thought too soon.

“In simpler terms it is increased physical abilities. Strength, speed, and most of my senses too,” he half lied. He could do all that, but it was no quirk.

The employee whistled, “damn kid, that sounds potent! Are you going to apply to UA or something? Your quirk could easily make you a hero.”

“I am hoping to enter the hero course. I came for the chains to use as support equipment in the exam,” he explained, keeping back his disappointment at society's focus on quirks as the sole measure of a person's capabilities.

The employee stopped and pointed at a shelf to his right. “Here they are kid, just tell me how long and I'll cut it.”

Izuku thanked the man and passed his hands over the various chains, settling for ones that felt similar to the ones he used to have and more importantly had a similar sound. And for the length… as exaggerated as it sounded, he asked, “how much would 4 meters of this one would be?”

“It’ll be 4,450 yen,” the employee read from their phone, turning for confirmation Izuku gave as a nod. The employee took a tool from a locked box nearby and began to clip loudly at the metal as he asked, “Say, why chains? Last I checked things like bats were allowed for the exam with the appropriate paperwork.”

“It is an adaptation for the exam. I know how to use a kusarigama but I found it doubtful that it would be allowed under the imposed restrictions,” he explained, taking the chains from the employee with a bow.

“Yeah that checks out, best of luck kid! Break a leg! Wait no! I forgot it’s not a theater show, don’t break any bones!” the employee panicked, groaning and turning away as he corrected quickly.

Izuku couldn’t help the laughter that escaped him, quickly mumbling apologies and reassurances to the young employee.

The entrance exam day came by quickly. Izuku made sure he had everything in his backpack for the nth time as his mom stood by the door, crossing off items from his mental checklist. Support item form, the chains, the change of clothes with the dumb blind joke his mom opposed wholeheartedly, his phone, battery pack, his passport as an ID, his computer and braille keyboard cover (just in case, since he was supposedly approved to do the theoric exam verbally) and—against his entire will—the cane.

“Are you sure you can take the exam Izuku? I’m worried you’ll get hurt honey,” his mom fussed over by the door, handing him his cane and closing his schoolbag.

Izuku smiled reassuringly and nodded, “there is no need to worry about me mom, I am thoroughly prepared for this exam.”

She sniffled, hugging him from the spot on the ground he was at. He felt her tears fall on his school gakuran and her smaller frame try to wrap around him. “It– it’s just that you’ve always worried me and seeing you take this huge step makes me feel… everything! Oh, I’m sorry for not saying it enough Izuku but I’m so proud of you, no matter what,” she admitted, with a broken and wet voice and her body trembling as she spoke.

Izuku began crying too, hugging one of the few people who had stayed with him through everything. “Thank you mom, thank you,” was all he could muster through the tears.

The hug lasted a while, and he could only bring himself to break apart from it when his last alarm sounded. He slung his bag over his shoulders, extending the cane and walking out the door.

“Stay safe Izuku,” his mom spoke from the door.

He nodded back, waving as he continued down the hallway. In the elevator, as he went down, he hid the cane in his schoolbag.

The walk there was calm, not entirely different from the one he took to school whenever Bakugou was in a good mood. Thinking about the kid made Gyomei frown. He was good, despite his short fuse he had a kind heart until everyone spoon fed him whatever he wanted without any consequences because of his quirk. He knew the boy would enter UA, he was smart and strong after all. Hopefully in an environment where he was the norm rather than the promising kid he would reflect and go back to the way he was before.

He walked into the subway station to find it packed to the brim, conversations from teenage kids plentiful in front of the platform and a few unfortunate adults who would be forced to share the route with all the teenagers who wished to go to UA.

Izuku slipped through the groups talking to each other until he stood in front of the platform, standing back from the smoother line in the ground that indicated the risk area. The bullet train arrived a few minutes later, and before all chaos settled in he walked into the cart and took an empty seat.

After a couple of painfully long minutes of students doing what sounded like an all out brawl to get into the train, they began to move between stations quickly. With nothing to do, Izuku listened in on the last minute studying of a group to his left until the doors opened again for another station.

It was just before the one for UA, with a large group of teenagers fighting to get in quickly to other carts but in the one he was—which admittedly was almost full—only came in a short, older person with a cane.

“Ah, excuse me. You can have my seat if you wish,” he offered kindly, standing up and hitting his head on the railing before taking it.

“Oh my! Thank you young man,” the lady smiled, taking the seat he offered.

The rest of the way there was the same with just that exception. Listening in, keeping calm, praying in silence and ignoring the vibrating phone from the spam from Kyoka until he was in a private space where he could hear the messages and others wouldn't listen in.

The train arrived at the station without delay, with hordes of students running off as soon as the door opened and stuffing the doors. Izuku waited until it all calmed down to step off the platform, and then he made his way to UA.

Someone jumped at him from behind, stealthy and quick footed. Izuku almost wouldn't have noticed in time had it not been that he was expecting it. “Hello Kyoka-chan. How was the train ride?” he asked, offering her a hand as she landed on her behind.

She took his hand and began to complain, “it was the most unflamboyant experience ever! It was full of teenage hormones and anxiety with barely any space to stand, not to mention that everyone was talking and using their quirks—despite it being ILLEGAL—to the point I could barely focus. They should seriously have more trains for this or several days for the exams, who thought it would be a good idea to have almost all of Japan's freshest hormones stuck in one place one singular day?! I'll tell you, nobody flashy, that's who. AND THEN—”

Izuku listened attentively as they walked to UA. By the time she finished, they were already at the front gates.

“Well, here we are,” Kyoka hummed. “This place is huge! It certainly can put mountains to shame. Flamboyant!”

“We need to drop off our support items first,” Izuku reminded her, placing a hand on her shoulder before she ran off. “Do you see any sign on where to drop them?”

Kyoka hummed lowly as she looked around and then pointed it out, “to our front in the right there is a small office marked as “item registration,” so I have a slight—just minimal, really—suspicion that’s where we should go.”

Izuku turned at her unsurprised, but sighed fondly and started walking over. There was no line in the office which was surprising, he thought that being able to have support items for the exam would be a popular option for people with quirks less adapted for battle. Not to mention, that being a hero was a physically taxing profession so those who wanted to apply should be trained in some form of combat or discipline that could be useful. If they weren’t… it certainly sounded like a quick path to the grave.

“Are you here to drop off support items?” a man with a rough and grave voice asked, sitting upright from his leaning position.

Kyoka nodded, taking out her form from her schoolbag and a pair of nunchucks, quickly sliding them over the counter. Izuku did the same, taking the sole piece of paper from the folder he had it in and placing it in the counter and digging to the bottom of the bag to take out the rolled up chains and give them to the staff member.

The man took both forms and read them over quickly before checking with them, “Jirou Kyoka and Midoriya Izuku, correct? Everything is in order so after you finish the written exam pass by over here and you’ll get these back so long you show some form of ID.”

“Thanks!” Kyoka beamed, bowing down in gratitude and taking his hand to drag him away before he could also express his gratitude. Still, Izuku didn’t mind to let his extroverted friend to do the talking instead of him.

They went inside the cooler halls together, but before long Izuku awkwardly told Kyoka, “I need to find a staff member for my exam accommodations.”

“It shouldn’t take long. All of the staff at UA are pro heroes so they stick out like a sore thumb with their flamboyant costumes,” she snorted, looking around the hallway as they walked.

Izuku had heard about that before, although he wasn’t entirely sure about it not being hearsay, it made sense that the teachers for a hero school were heroes. That meant the man they had spoken with earlier was a hero too, huh.

Kyoka nudged him with her elbow softly in the ribs, bringing back his attention. “There’s a hero over there so I’ll go to the exam hall, okay?”

Izuku noticed the heavier footsteps and subconsciously battle-ready posture of the hero nearby and nodded. “Thank you Kyoka-chan, best of luck,” he thanked her, walking over to the hero as she called back she didn’t need it.

“Excuse me? I was told to find a staff member as I was allowed to take the written exam verbally due to my disability,” he spoke up, pointing at his eyes vaguely. “My name is Midoriya Izuku, it was stated in my application.”

“Ah yes, follow me kid. Midnight will give you the exam in a few minutes so just study while you wait for her, calm your nerves or whatever you need,” the hero said. He took Izuku to a room, sort of like an office as he noticed from the plush chair he was offered.

He placed his schoolbag on the ground next to the chair and sat down. The hero left through the door and closed it behind himself, and in the quiet Izuku clasped his hands together and began to begin to pray.

Chapter Text

The door opened after maybe two minutes, at most, and a woman in tall, clicking heels walked in. “Well hello there Midoriya-kun, how are you feeling?” she queried, in what he would have considered to be an inappropriate tone did he not know any better.

“I am quite alright. I presume you are who will apply the examination for me, yes?” Izuku answered, turning his head slightly to where she was in respect.

The heroine sat down on the other chair in front of him and took out a stack of papers. “Indeed, you are quite perceptive boy~” —please don’t use that tone miss, I am simultaneously younger and older than you— “now then, I’ll be reading to you the questions from the exam with their possible responses for the most part, with the exceptions of the math questions where you’ll need to say your thinking process out loud and the literary analysis which is an open question with an essay answer expected. Other than that just say the answer out of the provided options and they’ll be recorded, alright?”

He nodded.

The heroine clapped her hands together, clarifying the instructions further, “good! The exam is four hours long in total and we will start as soon as the bell rings in a couple of minutes.”

The silence stretched across those minutes, only interrupted by the heroine’s attempts at small talk he awkwardly replied to. The bell rang all of the sudden, almost making him jump from his chair in surprise. Despite Midnight’s perfectly kept laughter, Izuku only needed to listen to her breathing to know she wanted to laugh.

Nemuri was pleasantly surprised to see how the boy was doing in his exam. When Nedzu asked her to be the examiner for a blind aspirant of the hero course she had been surprised. Why her? Was her first question question in mind, the one she said, however, went against all survival instincts she had developed as a hero and was why the rat looked disappointed.

Apparently, the principal wanted to assign the task to Eraserhead but after a little bit of “fun” he’d had with her cousin poor little Shota walked out of the room demanding a raise without accepting the task. Then Hizashi—who would have been the logical choice since the beginning—just had to be overseeing the examinees for some reason the dog looked far too cheerful and devious about.

So Nemuri decided to light a candle for them in their funerals because the bear was evil and she knew it. Not villainous evil, but the kind where the suffering and wild goose chases people hated were his source of entertainment.

“That was the last question about history so we are heading into literature. How does the story represent the core nature of humanity and struggle with it’s characters and symbols?”

Midoriya’s entire demeanor changed, from awkwardly answering the questions to ready and serious. He began his analysis with the basic structure, with the author’s information, the literary current, the genre and a small summary of the work.

“—The characters themselves can be divided into several categories, the most notable and detailed in the book being the Hashira, but also including smaller groups of characters as the kakushi and five demon slayers with importance and presence in the larger battles written. All the character groups mentioned earlier represent the better side of humanity, but even the demons of the book represent the more undesirable aspects of it in their flaws and considerably inhumane traits.

The hashira in general all showcase will, resilience and strength as shared virtues while carrying faults and imperfections as is human nature. The kakushi symbolized hidden strength, struggle and anonymity as the backbone of the organization. The masks that hid their identity also hid their emotions and thoughts, leaving only their diligent actions to be recognized. The five demon slayers emphasized represented humanity in a more literal way which was via the five senses they had the most developed and integrated into their every battle, also representing how everyone uses their strengths to their advantage. Finally the demons—more specifically the uppermoons—showcased a group of negative traits known more commonly in the west as the “seven deadly sins,” such as the literal lust motifs from the first uppermoon 6 who hid as an Oiran, the pride from the uppermoon 5 in the cruel vases he displayed or the uppermoon 1's greed as it was revealed that he used to be a hashira-level slayer before becoming a demon to cultivate more strength.

The characters also display humanity via their relations with other characters, like the distancing of Tomioka Giyuu from others to avoid grief from loss or the mask Kocho Shinobu took to quell the loss of her sister. One of the more complex relationships showed was of the Shinazugawa brothers, who loved each other in drastically different ways with the older sibling pushing away and denying his blood ties with the younger one to coax him to live a normal life while he threw away the normal life his older brother precisely hoped for him to live in order to find him, apologize and go back to how their relationship was.

Adding further to the character relations there are also the parallels of values and motifs present in the larger battles. The most direct and obvious exponent of this is the battle between Kanroji Mitsuri and the youngest clone of the uppermoon 4, with the opposing feelings of love and hate portrayed in a struggle to be the one which remains. On the other side, there would also be the battle against the uppermoon one with the Shinazugawa brothers, the mist hashira and the stone hashira. The Shinazugawa brothers carry the complexity of family with themselves as they fight, while the demon doesn't hold such worries or cares as he discards his descendant's thoughts and opinions about his humanity to attempt to force him to become a demon and then killed him—”

The boy continued analyzing every character for several minutes more, barely even stopping for breath even as he began to cry halfway through. From stress, most likely; it wasn’t uncommon for kids to continue answering the exam through tears at some point, although it did strike as odd for Nemuri since he was doing so well!

“—The symbols serve to add depth to these positive and negative traits. The most noticeable ones being the breathing styles, heavily reflected in the characters with examples as sound breathing has its user be loud and boastful yet also victim of an inferiority complex these traits covered the same way sound distracts from other senses. Water breathing reflects adaptability, a common trait in many people but one rarely possessed in its entirety just as the breathing styles is mentioned to be the “easiest to learn yet hardest to master.” Insect breathing shows dedication and a will strong enough to go against the odds via the use of the poison, which also leads to the anger and cruelty in the potency of such concoctions.

Besides the breathing styles, the demon's blood demon arts also symbolize and strengthen the human flaws if the characters. The uppermoon 2 had an ice themed blood demon art with religious symbolism centered around Buddhism, exemplifying the cult he led and his lack of real emotions making him cold to the suffering he caused without truly believing in the cause he called others for. Similarly, uppermoon 4 represented via its clones how every emotion by itself is negative no matter the positivity related to joy or pleasure; which were the only two “positive” clones, so to speak—”

Nemuri wouldn’t have had words to say anything as Midoriya continued with the analysis of everything for several minutes more. It definitely was the kind of essay that Nedzu loved, and gods damn it did it scare Nemuri the blast the chimera would have in his office listening to the recording… if the rat-dog-bear-criptid was not listening through the cameras already.

Eventually, after finding logical meaning to every single breath the characters took and connecting it to their last meal or some extra notes nobody else would notice, Midoriya finalized the essay by explaining the nuance of every situation and connecting it to the crucial part of hero society that that was certainly in need of development of the extremist views caused by quirkism.

Midoriya knew what he was talking about, and Nemuri had no doubts that he was going to pass the theoric exam now that all the questions were over, and the only thing stopping him from entering heroics—she checked his application before giving him the exam, out of pure curiosity, was all, that and not-so-subtle hints from Nedzu—was his pending performance on the practical exam. She was certainly curious how he would manage on the practical without a quirk; he had obvious muscles and strength, but would it prove to be enough against his quirked peers?

“Well then Midoriya, with that you have finished the exam! There are still around 15 minutes remaining before time’s up in case you want to revise a section,” she cheered, flipping over the final page from the examination she had been reading him and waiting for his reaction.

The boy awkwardly turned his head to the side and quietly asked, “could you kindly return to the math section in that case?” It was so cute how he was embarrassed of himself, Nemuri was sure he had a very kind heart for himself, and maybe even a girl lining up for him~

“Welcome everyone to the show! Everyone say HEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!” Present Mic cheered from the stand, loud and peppy despite the evident lack of answer from the hundreds of teenagers in the auditorium. He was a flamboyant man! And quite frankly, it was sad to see him being left hanging.

“Hey!” Kyoka yelled, the singular voice over the bone chilling silence.

The blond hero smiled and pointed in her direction. “Oh yeah! She gets the mood!”

Izuku awkwardly clasped his hands together and prayed with small droplets of tears in his eyes. Cheeky traitor.

“Alright examinees, I’ve also got shivers down my spine… Now then, I’ll be giving you the info on how this exam is going to go down, alright?” the hero announced, still as upbeat as ever without caring for the silence. Should she have answered again? No… it would have seemed unflamboyant, damn it!

The hero laughed heartily without hard feelings, changing the screen projected to the shadows of the four kinds of robots that were printed on the pages they were given. “Pay close attention now, we’ll be testing your skills in a ten minute long battle drill in one of UA’s fake cities. After this all of you change your clothes and head to your designated areas, and those of you with registered support items head back to get them first and then join your groups, alright?”

Kyoka peeked over to Izuku’s paper and… it was braille. Cool, cool, yeah. “Psst, hey, what’s your area?” she whispered, nudging him with her elbow.

“I am assigned at area C, and you?” Izuku returned.

Kyoka huffed, “area B. Looks like they separated friends and classmates or something.”

“There will be copious amounts of fake villains sprinkled around the areas, presented in three varieties with differing point values. The objective here is to get as many points as possible within the time frame by using your own skills. And also, do not hinder in any way your fellow examinees or there will be consequences as that is against the rules!”

Someone stood up suddenly a few rows back, stiff in their movements. Alongside practically everyone else who noticed, Kyoka turned around like a gossip to see who decided to act up. “Excuse me!” a tall—though not as tall as Izuku—boy with a square face, well combed hair and a pair of glasses questioned quite loudly, “on the hand-out there are four types of villains stated! Such a mistake should be unbecoming of—”

Oh great, he was a stuck up brat. Tengen was glad none of his kids had a stick up their behind, he raised all of them to be flamboyant and respectful. Even the kind hearted Izuku was crying and praying publicly, moping to himself, “how sorrowful, he does not respect authority nor waits for the explanation to end before asking his doubts… I pray he grows more sensible.”

Present Mic nodded with a determined smile and explained, “alright, thank you young lad! The fourth villain mentioned is a challenge that isn’t meant to be tackled just yet and has a total value of zero points! There is no need to be concerned with that one in combat, but make sure to avoid it when it comes around! Hahaha!”

The unflamboyant boy bowed down and yelled, “thank you very much for the clarification! My most sincere apologies for my rudeness!”

“Well, that’s enough from me! I won’t take any more of your time, so let’s move on to what you came here for. Don’t forget, set your heart ablaze and plus ultra!” He yelled, actually receiving a chorus for the last sentence. But Tengen didn’t care about the school anthem schmantem, no, he cared about what he said before.

Set your heart ablaze, some of Rengoku’s last words before his death and a phrase he repeated several times as motivation to younger slayers he took in as tsugukos before they ran for the hills. He had included it very clearly when he wrote about Rengoku on the book though, and it had taken a sudden burst in popularity when it was marked as the assigned reading for the UA entrance exam. The teachers must’ve read it before assigning it, and it was a damn flamboyant phrase that fit with the loud hero so he must have taken it for himself. Yeah, what would have been the odds of it being otherwise?

The students ran for the restrooms and changing rooms like Tengen’s muscle mice bunched together whenever he fed them. Desperate, ravenous, and probably willing to bite to be first. Kyoka winced as she and Izuku hanged back with a few more teenagers. It didn’t take long for the unflamboyant hormone flesh bags to give enough space for Kyoka, and within a less than a minute she had already changed.

After squeezing through the hordes that should have been organized in some way for the well being of everyone present, Kyoka passed by the support item office to take back her nunchucks. Walking back from there, she saw the flamboyant figure of Izuku walking back, wearing a white shirt with an impression of an old, pre-quirk era comic book that said “You see this sh*t Daredevil?” “No.” A dumb joke she’d found at a thrift store once with Izuku and hearing his few odd and in between jokes she had to get it for him. It was the most loose shirt he had in his closet behind his school gakuran—which really didn’t do justice to his flamboyant muscles, which sprang from truly hard work and dedication—which was really saying something given that it did cling to his body whenever he used just a bit of his strength for anything.

“Hey Izuku-kun! How how are you feeling about the exam?” she asked, waving him over with a cheeky grin. Did he notice the wave? At that point she wasn’t sure, but to hell with it, the gesture was what mattered.

Izuku turned to her and smiled softly, giving back a small wave as he walked towards her with his chains in hand, clinking together softly. He replied, “I am confident in my capabilities, although I do worry about the smell on the ride back from the extended physical activity of several teenagers…”

Kyoka laughed, patting his back comfortingly. “You and everyone here, I’m sure,” she joked.

Izuku hummed awkwardly and the silence stretched for a few empty seconds. “I’ll not take any more of your time then, I am certain you will do great in the examination,” he finally changed the topic, nodding and patting her head before leaving. The fucking audacity.

Izuku held his chains in both of his hands in the front of the group of students. There was some space the teenagers kept from him, although they were speaking confidently amongst themselves in their majority he of what he could hear.

The minority, however, was something closer to the lines of:

“What’s with that kid? He’s built like a mountain!”

“He looks like he should have taken the recommendation exams…”

“Man, and he has some support equipment! We’re screwed…”

“What does this guy even eat?!”

It reminded Gyomei of the corps, of the distance even the hashira kept from him due to his imposing physique. Admittedly, he also kept himself distanced from the few who wished to get closer to him… Back then he was only a weapon, that was where all his worth relied after prolonging the date of his death sentence. But for Izuku, in that moment when he had already come cross his due destiny, the cruelty of being distanced unwillingly was frustrating, to say the least.

Still, time waited for no one and he kept his focus on the large doors keeping them from beginning the exam. The doors began to open with a heavy whirring noise and in a single moment he shot forth towards the clanking robots awaiting for the initial rush, with his chains turning at his side to gain momentum.

“What are you waiting for?! There are no countdowns in real life!”

Izuku breathed out, stone breathing; first form: serpentinite bipolar!

He manipulated the chains as they tore through the pieces of metal from the machines, effortlessly leaving behind a sparking carnage he turned away from to continue with the exam.

He ran off to smaller fake streets more distant from the main one where everyone was utilizing their quirks and accidentally getting in the way of others. The robots came in semi-large groups, and Izuku tore through them with ease. By the time a minute had passed, he had already destroyed over 30 robots of unclear value and gained the animosity of some examinees who said he stole their points.

Standing over some on the destroyed robots, noticing the awkward movements he had with the chains since they didn’t have the weight he was used to, Izuku tore off some of the metal from them and smashed it together on the edges to recreate a rougher version of his kusarigama. In the following moment, when a robot attempted to sneak up on him, he tested the new weapon and found it to be much more familiar to him.

The following minutes were repetitive, consisting of running, listening, and destroying robots. He shifted through the familiar forms of stone breathing whenever there were large groups of the fake villains, falling into the familiar motions of the old days of demon slaying.

Running into an alleyway where he heard various robots giving struggle to a pair of examinees, Izuku destroyed the robots to give him a total of 56 points minimum. “Thank you monsieur!” a boy with a thick accent heaved, holding back a wince as he spoke.

Izuku nodded, setting down his chains on the ground before checking in with then. “Are you injured in any way?” he asked both of them, furrowing his brow in worry.

“I- I think my shoulder is dislocated,” a girl quivered, and focusing further Gyomei could notice she was holding her limp arm at her side and the boy was curled up on his stomach.

He knelt in front of them, tentatively extending his arms and asking, “may I?”

The girl nodded, and with that he took her arm and started a countdown. At the count of three, he popped the arm back in and the girl gave a brief yelp. He let go of her arm and she moved it a little, admittedly still noticeably hurt but much better. “Thank you!”

With tears in his eyes he stated, “it's no issue, take care; both of you.” Both of them nodded, and Izuku took his kusarigama to continue on with the exam. It was likely that their injuries were caused by their quirks or a sudden onslaught of opponents ambushing them, had it been final selection Gyomei would have been much more hesitant to leave them, but it was only ten minutes and around half of those had already come to pass, so they were going to be alright.

For the following time, he encountered less and less robots and came across more of the piles of smashed machines from where he had taken them out. Well, too late to worry about that. There were more people who had resulted injured in some way so Izuku busied himself during that time making improvised slings and bandages with the things that were at his reach. Several of the examinees were thankful, but there were a few who claimed that they didn't need his help.

“It is unbecoming of myself as an aspiring hero to take your valuable examination time due to a minor cut, I cannot accept this aid in good conscience!” the stiff boy from the explanation loudly proclaimed, swatting at the air with his uninjured arm as the other ebbed blood. Such a pitiful child, holding himself at such a high standard he does not allow any external aid… I pray he learns to be kinder to himself and everyone.

The ground shook beneath him, and he heard everyone run away from a hulking thing that emerged from the back of the fake city. “What the hell is that thing?! Is that supposed to be the zero pointer?!” he heard between the frightened screams of the crowd. “It’s the size of a building, there's no way we can fight that!”

Izuku considered helping the people run away, but then he heard a girl plead from between rubble, “help me…! Anyone!”

His body moved on instinct, jumping from building to building in rapid succession to gain height and then, with the kusarigama rattling with every spin he gave it, he jumped at the gigantic machine with the weapon spinning by both of his sides.

“Stone breathing: fourth form; volcanic rock, rapid conquest!”

He threw the weapon from both sides along himself, aiming for the point where the metal clanked against metal at the main joint. The first strike dented and broke through the outer metal, but it didn't stop it. The second one, however, was enough as it tore through wires, cables and connections for the robot to fall back to where it came with a ground shattering thunk.

Without the momentum, he took began to fall suddenly. The wind rushed against his ears and the chains rattled behind him. He steeled himself for landing at any moment, focus, he thought, it will come soon.

Something—somebody—smacked him in the arm and he stayed floating midair alongside his weapon, which no longer rattled. “Re– release!” the girl that was stuck stuttered, and with that he fell unceremoniously on the ground; face first.

Ow…

“Time's up! Great work everyone, you should be proud of your hard work!” Present Mic's loud voice resounded through the area. “If you're uninjured head back to the entrance where the bus will pick you up, otherwise stay right were you are and wait for help to come!”

Izuku sat up and wrapped his kusarigama back up, removing the pieces of metal from the edges as he did so, and slung it over his shoulder before going to free the girl. She sounded sick, and Izuku changed his route to go help as he heard her throw up. Such dedication… to attend such a physically taxing exam while ill is truly admirable.

Walking up from her side, he began to lift and take the rubble crushing her with care. Some other examinees came by to help, and the stiff kid from earlier pulled her out as Izuku and three other examinees moved the largest boulder. It wasn't of a weight he couldn't handle, but it had been better to receive aid from others, even in between the three of them they could only lift half of what he did.

He went back with the girl after they set down the boulder. “Are you alright? It was quite the heavy boulder that fell on you,” Izuku asked, helping the other boy let her lie down as medical aid arrived.

The boy open and closed his mouth as he wished to say something, but words did not leave him. Izuku did not say anything either, he didn’t know what he could’ve said.

He heard a cane clicking against the ground, and the voice of the old lady from the train spoke sweetly, “go home lads, I’ll take it from here. Just leave it to me~ here, enjoy some gummies.”

She stopped in front of the three of them, standing a few steps away. “Oh my! Nausea is quite harrowing young girl, is it not?” she asked softly. Izuku could practically hear the sweet, old-lady type of smile come from her.

The girl groaned, sickly and dizzy as she attempted to dignify an answer. “Please do not force yourself to speak, your dizziness will only get worse if you do so,” Izuku interjected, holding her head up as she still attempted to answer.

“You should listen to the him girl, he does have some knowledge on what he is talking about,” the woman chastised, a tad more tired in her tone but still patient. It was evident she dealt with stubborn patients often, it must have been a frustrating for her. How sorrowful.

The old woman leaned in closer to the girl and she… kissed her? No, he must have listened wrong. It couldn’t have been that, even as the boy sputtered about inadequacies and the girl moved without nausea. Wait, what? Never mind, it must have been her quirk. Those abilities were truly miraculous, and there were often times he forgot about their existence.

With the girl all better, the three of them walked into the bus, but Izuku heard how the boy gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. Much too high of a standard for himself… I can only pray he does not burn himself out like Shinobu did.

Chapter Text

When it was time for the practical exam, Shota was tired. He hadn’t really done anything that day save for fighting the cats, try to stay in bed as Kyojuro pulled him out against his will, deny the will of the rat maniac he had for a boss and take a wonderful nap in the vents.

Still, he valiantly walked into the camera room full of his batshit crazy coworkers by himself, holding his head high despite it being hidden in his scarf with his bright yellow sleeping bag of wonders under his arm. “Heeey Shota-kun, how’re ya doing today?” Nemuri asked, turning around in the office chair she was sitting at like a movie villain mastermind until the illusion was shattered when she passed her cue to stop, turned back, missed it again, and then just scooted it over manually.

The room was dark, but he didn’t need any more light than the one the came from the monitors to see her teasing smile. “I’m tired, and about to be more after this is over,” he deadpanned, taking a chair for himself and sitting on it. “Gods, I miss Kyo.”

“Yeah well Mr. I miss my husband, guess who did the job you so kindly didn’t take?” Nemuri drawled out, crossing her legs dramatically as if she was sharing the best gossip there was. Shota was fond of his cousin—she was a bit like Tsutako was when his sister teased him, but much more unserious—finding himself enjoying talking to her more often than not. In that moment though, it was not.

“Vlad?” he guessed halfheartedly, contemplating about getting into his sleeping bag as they watched some kids fight and destroy robots but eventually going against it. Nemuri’s smirk grew cheekier, and the realization settled in horribly into the pit of his stomach as he recognized the expression. “No,” he gasped, far to horrified to react further.

“Yes!~” she cheered, lying back on the chair with enough impulse to give it a twirl. Shota looked around for some mercy from his coworkers to save him from the villain, but Majima took a sip of coffee as he looked at them, Vlad was talking about something with Ectoplasm, Snipe looked away as he whistled, Thirteen was… nowhere to be seen actually and All Might—the new addition to the staff, who—by the way—was nothing like he was portrayed on media—was so focused in trying to be an actually decent teacher despite having no previous training to even notice. Traitors, all of them. “Oh, the boy was so innocent and nervous, but he did really well actually. I just know Nedzu will love his essay analysis. He reminded me a lot of you when you were younger, you know? I remember seeing you almost cry doing the end of our entrance exam.”

Right, that. Well blame Giyuu for having to analyze his written grief as if it was only fiction! It was the kind of thing that never truly left him, haunting his nightmares with inhuman monsters and corpses that laid on centuries old graves. If there was any body to lie in said graves.

His savior came in the form of the UA principal walking in with a maniacal glint in his eyes. “Hello everyone! How great to see that all of us are here for this, even after your little escapade earlier today Shota,” Nedzu chattered with clear passive-aggressiveness in his tone.

Shota groaned, “what do I need to do for your forgiveness and my peace?”

The rat smiled, unnatural and creepy but after years of working under him he was already used to that and the maniacal cackling. “Let me watch the exam nestled in your scarf,” he proposed smugly.

He could only sigh and loose the fabric around his neck, waiting for the chimera to climb up as his dignity was all dead and gone. His fuzzy boss covered himself with the fabric, and suddenly the gates to the exam opened.

Normally all of the kids stayed in their places gaping at the city, maybe one or two who failed the recommendation exam ran ahead but most of the times even they stayed put. This year, however, two kids shot forward and began to massacre the first onslaught within seconds with very distinct fighting styles.

“Is it normal for this to happen?” All Might asked from his seat, the most inexperienced voice in the room when it came to the way UA operated.

“Not at all Toshinori, not at all,” Nedzu mused.

And it didn’t take a genius to realize that it was not, as the teenagers that had stolen the spotlight over his husband’s voice were weaving through the familiar motions of sound and stone breathing. Sound breathing made some sense since Uzui had like, what, 10 children? He didn’t have his phone out to check in google but he was sure he had direct descendants in the double digits, so centuries later probably half of japan had some of his genes in there. The chances of sound breathing being passed down were actually pretty high, so Giyuu didn’t think too much about that. What he did think about quite a bit, was how the other kid knew stone breathing. His first thought was Himejima being reborn as the teenager, but he quickly scrapped that idea since he had already found the ex stone hashira and had confirmed he was on his late twenties or early thirties just by his voice being just as it was before. So what could it have been then, for that kid to know the breathing style?

As everyone focused and noted on different promising candidates from other areas after the unanimous decision to focus more on everyone else rather than just on the crazy fast kids, Giyuu tried to connect the dots on his mental mind map that led nowhere. Himejima had been reborn and was currently an adult, while that kid also knew how to use stone breathing. Somehow, Himejima knew that kid and had decided to teach him in some way that the teenager decided to not rat him out as a vigilante—which was completely fair, vigilantes had mostly a good public response whenever they became known by the public—or they were related in some way this time around. Could the kid be his son? Giyuu wouldn’t be surprised if Himejima had a son, the surprising part would have been if he was his biological kid; he couldn’t imagine Himejima romantically involved with anyone, it was more likely he adopted the green haired kid.

On a smaller screen, the boy came to a stop to add to his chains broken and torn pieces of metal at the edges which further simulated the kusarigama Himejima used. In that moment where the kid was finally still, Giyuu found the distinct familiarity of piercing and unmoving white eyes in him. Damn it, it had completely slipped his mind that there was a blind and quirkless applicant that year, no mystery left as to why Himejima had taught that kid stone breathing if he found himself in the boy.

With that mystery solved, Shota tried to focus on the other applicants that were taking the exam. There was a boy with a powerful explosion quirk and clear anger issues that posed a risk if gone uncorrected, and with the way he was performing in the exam with utter disregard for his peers he was getting in and hindering others from doing so. “The explosive boy’s attitude needs to be fixed if he gets in, it makes him pose a risk to those around him,” he noted, pointing at the screen the blond kid was shown with a murderous grin.

“Bakugou Katsuki, a student from Aldera middle school. As you can see his quirk lets him create explosions from the palm of his hands,” Nedzu listed from the top of his mind.

Vlad added his two cents to the situation, stating exactly what Shota thought, “so it is likely a case of quirkism to his favor. Aizawa’s right, that will need to be fixed if he gets in.”

Both heroics homeroom teachers had been subjected to quirkism in their early life due to their “villainous” quirks, as it happened with quirk-affecting quirks and blood quirks. Both of them knew better than most how quirkism was a double-edged knife for those with “heroic” quirks too.

“Yes it is quite the predicament, but let us not be hasty in our judgment until we see who gets in or not!” Nedzu piped up, with his furry ears tickling Shota’s chin.

They continued on noting several participants with promise. A stealthy blond boy without a clear quirk that turned out could copy quirks with just touch, another blonde who was quick-footed and had an electricity quirk with a clear drawback from its overuse, a kid with a paper head that could create physical onomatopoeia, the list went on, even as they often went back to the over the top results from Uzui’s descendant and Himejima’s student from their short and to-the-point battles and improvised medical aid. Thirteen added that in those areas they would most likely have to round up the points for the other participants to give them a fair grade.

And then, the time came. Nedzu pulled out a big red button from his suit and pushed it with maniacal laughter that earned Shota a concerned glance from All Might. Tough luck, it’s always like this over here.

He really missed having a kind and understanding boss.

The ground opened on each fake city, and the over the top machines sprung out as just a minute remained to test the examinees’ heroic acts. On area C, a brunette girl they had mentioned earlier was stuck under a boulder she couldn’t reach to use her quirk on, right on the robot’s path. Shota knew that the machines were programmed to not deal any damage worse than a broken bone, and the hulking masses of metal that caused chaos and fear where they went were simply programmed to walk menacingly without actually fighting against the potential students or even harming them.

The green haired stone breather leaped against the buildings from side to side until he sprinted across the rooftops. Area C was the most chaotic one at the moment, with no other area having a kid at risk or actively running towards it, so all teachers present were watching it on the larger screen at the edge of their seats. The teenager jumped towards the robot, and although the cameras did not have enough audio reach for that distance it was obvious the boy yelled something before throwing out from both sides the weighed ends of his weapon to destroy the circuits of the zero pointer and letting it fall backwards.

Nemuri shook him around, screaming at him excitedly, “that’s the kid! That’s the kid I was telling you about!”

Power Loader almost spat out his coffee at seeing how easily destroyed his work ended up, muttering something about Nedzu forcing the poor man to make them tougher for next year.

All Might looked more pleasantly surprised than anything, a small smile on his sickly skeletal form as he looked at the screen. “I met that kid almost a year ago,” the number one hero shared, “he single handledly took down a villain I had been tracking after he had been chosen as his victim.”

The kid fell down, ready and braced for the rough landing that never came, as the girl that was stuck used her quirk on him to make him weightless. He floated a feet above the ground with a slightly panicked expression—Shota could imagine why, without the chains rattling against each other the kid would have no idea how far he was from the ground—for a few moments before the girl released her quirk on him and he landed face first. That had to hurt.

With that disastrous show officially out of the way, the screens showed the examinees begin being more helpful to their injured peers as they couldn’t gain any more points. It was always frustrating for him to see how the applicants had a complete switch up in their behavior after the practical exam was finished. Selfish and focused only on themselves during the exam, leaving behind peers who were injured and—as far as they knew—at risk for themselves only to go back and help them when they had nothing to gain.

“Seems like we have our work cut out for us this year,” Snipe finally said to break the silence, looking at the screen where Uzui’s descendant was organizing everyone in area B to help those injured and place them all in the same spot.

Nedzu smiled, chattering in a jolly voice, “indeed! I will be sending all of you the camera footage from one of the areas to calculate the total of villain points for each applicant while I count the hero points, you have two days off to focus on this task and then we’ll form the groups as always. I have a feeling this school year will be quite interesting.”

With a collective chill around the room Shota only resisted from displaying himself because the only thing worse than an amused Nedzu was fighting the literal demon king, his coworkers began to leave for their safety and mental well being. The school principal jumped out of his scarf and Shota walked out of the door, completely set on going back to sleep with Kyojuro as soon as he arrived.

“I am sure you noticed now why I wanted you to apply the exam to Midoriya-kun now, Shota,” Nedzu mused from the door with a knowing smile.

Shota nodded, turning back slightly to see him. “His techniques are quite similar to the vigilante’s, there is clearly some relation between them. You wanted me to apply him the exam to see what I could gauge from him, didn’t you?”

“You know me too well sometimes. So then, what are your theories?”

Shota listed, “a family member, most likely, and if not, just a kid he sympathized with and taught how to fight. Joining the points of the kid’s quirkless status—which you so kindly mentioned to me but not Nemuri-chan, for some reason I don’t want to know—and the possibility of an obscuring quirk from the vigilante rather than a strength quirk point to their training and their techniques enhancing physical abilities in general too, so that narrows down the search for him.”

Nedzu’s smile was unreadable as he neutrally admitted, “those certainly are interesting theories Shota, I wish you well in your work. Hopefully you will finally get the break from the case you’ve so wanted these last 3 years.”

It had been surprising for Hizashi when it turned out that one of Uzui’s descendants had taken the exam only using sound breathing. More surprising, however, was that a kid had been using stone breathing in the exam as well. The breathing technique had been lost after the final battle, with so many slayers too injured to even consider fighting again and most dead.

Giyuu had told him his theory after coming home straight to bed—one of those days Kyojuro was going to get him insomnia medication—and he had to admit, it made sense. Besides Uzui (and Kocho who had known him previously), Kyojuro was the only one who made an attempt to get to know better the stone hashira and from what little he let to be known about him Kyojuro could easily envision him taking care of children. Tokito was a good example, even though Himejima took a while to stop being tense around him; it took everyone a long time to stop that, he was far too young.

After spending the mornings watching the footage from the fake city B snuggled with Giyuu, the afternoons on his radio show and juggling in between some hero work in between when he was needed, it was already time to organize the classes.

Back when Hizashi had first taken the teacher position for UA, the idea of organizing classes based on the students interpersonal relationships sounded great to him! Friends could be together, classrooms were filled with people who had met during the entrance exam and the mood was practically guaranteed to be great. That was until he had to help figure out who went where, how, why, which class would be best and sometimes Nedzu completely shot down some ideas due to his incomprehensible whims.

After dragging Giyuu out of bed that morning with threats of hogging the cat for himself—“Don’t you dare Kyojuro, DON’T YOU DARE!”—and giving him a hearty breakfast after burning only the first two attempts, the two of them went to UA to organize the classrooms.

“Hello everyone, how have you been?” he asked with a bright smile and a wave of his hand. Kan waved back at him with a friendly nod, and Majima even stopped downing coffee like a mad man to say his greetings.

Nemuri walked into the teacher’s lounge from the other door, looking with wide eyes at Giyuu as he was lying against him. She took out her phone, snuck a picture with a proud smile and took her seat. “Oh, I am just so proud of my baby cousin, who would have thought he would bag such a great man for himself?!” she teased, moving her eyebrows up and down suggestively.

Hizashi laughed loudly, taking his own seat around the meeting table. “If anything I should be the one grateful to have him, he’s the most wonderful husband ever!” the loud hero proclaimed, enjoying himself as his beloved hid his red face in his scarf and took his seat as well. It was wonderful how widely accepted queer love had become since the Taisho era, despite the few people who were still bigoted in Japan and the plethora more from other parts of the world.

“Not homophobic, just a hater, but your greed sickens me Yamada-san,” Kan joked, rolling his eyes as he scrolled through his phone.

Giyuu raised an eyebrow, and without budging from his place as he read over the student’s files Hizashi’s hobo-looking lover shot back, “that just sounds like you’re jealous.”

“Oh my! You say Sekijiro is jealous of Hizashi? However did I miss this?” Nedzu piped up from the door, completely shadowed by All Might, although that only extended to the literal sense. The number one hero opened his mouth as he wanted to say something, perhaps ask for context, but he closed it again without saying anything.

Kan shot a look at Giyuu, but the vampire-like hero didn’t truly have any ill intent towards him. It was a small difference from their previous co-workers, but Kyojuro knew perfectly well that it made him happy to be sure there was no hostility meant in those actions. Giyuu took a jelly pack—where did he get that? I thought I threw away all of those!—and began drinking its content wordlessly, smug in the results he managed to create with his words, despite the sass being accidental as always.

“Very well, now that all of us are here,” wait, everyone? Oh, Snipe and Anan were in the corner; how didn’t he notice? How shameful! “let us start organizing classes! Is there anyone you wish to get out of the way first? Speak now or forever hold your peace,” Nedzu chittered happily, taking the highest seat at the end of the table and a cup of tea that was already there.

Nemuri drawled out, “well, I am curious about those two kids that completely destroyed the practical exams. Sadly, I didn’t get either of their areas but I don’t doubt they passed.”

“Ah yes, Jirou Kyoka and Midoriya Izuku,” Nedzu mentioned as he took out an empty notebook. “From what I’ve gathered they have been close friends for years, although they completed middle school separately from each other. And as you could’ve assumed, both attained a large sum of hero points as well!”

It was standard for the principal to never give the total points a future student achieved on the exams for the teachers to place them fairly based on what they thought and considered best for them, although Hizashi couldn’t imagine how that would change their actions; they were still the same students and had the same needs, why would that change after knowing their results? Same as their file, only the principal had the full details until they were already teaching the school year. It made no sense to him that their behavior to the students would change if they knew more about them, if anything it would make them better at tackling their weaknesses!

“Without question they both need to be in my class,” Giyuu stated coldly and matter-of-factly, leaving no room for intervention. “There is something about them that screams trouble, and I won’t leave them to Vlad if I have a say about it.”

“I think you missed the part where you say “no offense” Aizawa-san,” Kan quipped from his seat, raising an eyebrow.

The underground hero impassively replied, “I could not care less if you were offended by it so do what you wish.”

“Though, maybe you could have more tact when saying things Aizawa-san,” Anan offered kindly, sitting next to the unimpressed blood hero.

Nedzu chuckled, “I do agree with Shota on the regard that he should have the students on 1-A, but if it came to it I do know Sekijiro would be a great teacher for them. Now then, the other question would be what to do with Bakugou Katsuki, Midoriya-kun’s classmate from middle school.”

“I got him in my area, kid has obviously some degree of anger issues that need to be fixed, but his quirk is highly destructive” Majima added, thumping his fingers rhythmically against the table.

Nemuri hummed deeply in thought, “the blond kid that looked like a pomeranian that caused Shota-kun and Kan-san to bitch about quirkism?”

“It’s not “bitching” when it’s a real issue—”

“Complain, whatever,” she cut Kan off, dismissing him with a wave of her hand. “His quirk were literal explosions, combined with his sorry attitude I think it needs to be Shota-kun who has him.”

“I believe it sounds like a great idea! Yuu, Kan-san, what are your thoughts on this?” Hizashi asked, turning to the heroics homeroom teachers with a blinding smile on his face.

Giyuu sighed and stood up to put his jelly pack into the trash—the last one that would reach their pantry back home, Hizashi would make sure—and when he walked back onto the table he never broke eye contact with their animal boss.

“I demand a raise sometime this year.”

“An early transfer to gen-ed and another to Vlad’s classroom.”

“I’ll take it.”

Izuku was calm and content as he ate his takokami gohan. The UA letter was supposed to arrive either the previous day or that one, but after a week of peace and quiet without the stress of studying he felt more productive when he worked on some songs.

He’d left the last album he’d been working on on an extended hiatus for that past year after he found himself breaking down each time he attempted to work further on it, feeling his hands ache with the fantom chronic pain of the torn ligaments and stained deep into his soul with the demon’s thick and sticky blood. After having his hands washed down to the point the skin practically flaked off, he decided to study as a distraction.

Kyoka had definitely noticed when she took him to the karaoke against his will, and the musical she performed on its entirety had been a nice distraction from drowning in silent tears when he studied as he thought about the melodies and children, instead leading him to hum the heart wrenching tale of the Odyssey as he did the same task, with many tears less.

The dinner table was quiet, with only the sound of Izuku’s chopsticks clicking against each other every so often. Across of him he heard his mom breathing, although her own utensils were static on the table—as far as he could tell, at least—and her attention was elsewhere. “Mom, is everything alright? You have been awfully quiet today,” he asked, pinching his eyebrows in worry.

She didn’t react in a way he could notice firstly, but she sighed after a few worrisome seconds and admitted, “it’s just… no matter the results, you still did amazing on the exam, alright Izuku?”

His mom worried a lot about him, by pure miracle she never questioned the bruises he came back after three years—almost four actually—of going out to fight crime at night. He supposed they were easy to dismiss as he did bump into quite a few things—namely door frames—when he went places he didn’t know the layout of already.

He nodded with small droplets of tears on the verge of falling from his eyes, and the meal continued in awkward silence before he washed his plate and dismissed himself.

He walked into his room, closing the door behind him as he walked over to his desk. The carpet he had on the ground was soft as he walked over it, stopping abruptly as he neared his chair so he could pull it back to seat on it without it bunching up on the carpet. His desk was organized down to the millimeter, with his laptop closed over his desk and his headphones over it.

He placed the headphones over his ears, slightly muting the sounds of the world around him as he turned on his computer. The quiet ping of energy was all the confirmation he needed before his fingers ran over the keyboard covered by a plastic sheet with braille labeling, typing in his password without needing to stop and search for the keys as muscle memory worked its wonders.

“3 new messages from FlamboyanceReborn.”

FlamboyanceReborn
Say, have you been working on anything big lately?
We’ve barely talked these last few months
It’s so unflamboyant

Monster
I have.
Although I did take a large break in the middle of it.

FlamboyanceReborn
What is it?
Planning on taking down another gang to the ground?

Monster
That was a one time situation, but how are you aware of it?

FlamboyanceReborn
It was on the news :P
You’ve made quite the name for yourself big guy

Monster
I was not aware of that, I shall be more careful with my endeavors then.
But to answer your question, I have been working on another album.

FlamboyanceReborn
How flamboyant! When do you think you’ll finish it?

Monster
It is almost finished, perhaps another month or so.

FlamboyanceReborn
Will you actually announce it before releasing it this time?
You’ve taken everyone by surprise the last two times by dropping them out of the blue

Monster
Perhaps I should, but as it is I do not know how to announce them previously.

FlamboyanceReborn
Himejima-san, I say this in the nicest way possible, but why do you have twitter in that case???

DO NOT LEAVE ME ON READ?!

As it had been, he had never actually done posts on his account. He had it there and sometimes answered some questions people had, but as it was he had never done a post in there. Perhaps when he finished the songs he would announce them with a couple of days’ wait to be released, it didn’t sound as a bad idea.

Gyomei wrote the songs mostly for himself, to cope and let his grief be expressed in a way that wouldn’t be questioned. Every note held a tear behind it, and the attempts at sculptures he made held nostalgia and longing in them, captured in a blurry picture he insisted on taking himself. There was only one person left who knew that Izuku was Monster and it was his mom, but the most she said was that he was very talented for his age.

Still, his songs now were something that people enjoyed and interpreted, actually, most of the meanings people got from them hadn’t even passed through his head as he wrote them. It was a truly unique experience to see how the same words that were supposed to mean one thing could mean thousands of other things at the same time. Some just took the same message and feelings he wrote and interpreted and applied it to the modern context, such as the Kochos’ song, and others took a brand new meaning, like the Family album.

“–zuku…!”

Soft melodies slowly formed, with a sweet piano and flute weaving through 9 lullabies one after another. Two of them faded naturally to a close, but the rest pained him to cut off suddenly. He made the songs in such a way that they could form a more complex harmony if they were all played at the same time as their lives were all interconnected when they lived. It was the kind of details he only thought of while showering or running around late at night… he had noticed that he couldn’t hold his train of thought or the repetitiveness of his prayers as long as before, though he could do it for longer than a few years previous…

“Izuku!”

He quickly and clumsily took his headphones off, pushing his chair away and accidentally falling back as he did so with a loud thump. “Wha– huh? Mom?”

He went to the door and found her on the ground, tearfully calling out with an extended arm and exclaiming, “it came! It’s here! It’s here honey!”

Katsuki exploded the UA envelope into smoking ashes as he stared to the points leader board projected by the disk from his acceptance letter.

1st— Midoriya Izuku
2nd— Jirou Kyoka
3rd— Bakugou Katsuki

Third place.

Third fucking place to damn Deku and ears. He lost to a girl with a listening quirk and to quirkless, blind Deku. He was worse to UA than those two extras, his explosions and power worth less than a good ear and useless eyes.

Chapter Text

Izuku searched through his largely empty drawers, running his fingers over old pieces of paper with a waxy feeling in attempts to gauge out which one was the one he wished for. There were already some he discarded, either being made with a different material than the one he wished for or of a drastically different size. He knew he kept it in there somewhere… it was in one of those papers, but which?

“Namu amida butsu… why does this have to be so complicated?”

He dropped the papers on top of his bedside table and flopped onto the bed, his half open eyes drooping tears and pointed vacantly to the ceiling, or maybe the wall. Nibbles laid on top of him, the furry and bratty cat taking him as a cushion over which she did biscuits, curled up on softly and purred comfortably. Izuku sighed and resigned himself to his fate, raising one of his hands to pet the little feline heating pad.

The door creaked open, and Izuku turned his head slightly towards it. “Namu?”

“Izuku, honey, are you busy– oh!” his mom walked in, stopping at the door as she peeked in. There was silence for a few seconds, and then there was a sudden camera shutter.

He felt his face flush in shame as he turned it away, subconsciously closing his tearing eyes, while complaining, “please do not take pictures of me…”

She laughed and sat on his bed next to him, the pressure slightly sinking the cushion to his right. Her hand was soft as she wiped off the small tears that welled in his eyes and brushed back his hair from his forehead. “It’s for the memory Izuku, so one day when you’re all grown up I can think back on this moment,” she explained, and Izuku definitely didn’t pout in response. He didn’t!

“I am aware, but does it have to be the memory of being pinned in place by Nibbles?” he exhaled, opening his eyes just a bit

His mom hummed softly in neither confirmation or denial, simply in response. He huffed in resignation, but lovingly to his mother nevertheless. He knew the importance of a mother’s presence better than most and he’d always be grateful for her… though he could (and would) be grateful and annoyed simultaneously.

“What were you doing anyways Izuku? It’s rare the occasion when you reorganize everything,” she asked, with her hair shifting over her shoulders indicating she turned her head towards his bedside table. He had placed his old and misshapen crayon drawings in there, and he had never really gotten himself to throw them out. They held some value to him, his wonder at the visual world held in one stack of papers he could only hold wistfully.

Izuku turned over his head, his bangs covering his eyes. Nibbles was biting at his finger from where he stopped petting her, making cute little mews as she tried to draw blood. “I was attempting to gauge which one of the drawings was the one I made for my hero costume, but as it is I’ve had no luck,” he admitted silently, a quiet share of his struggles.

“You can always ask for help, nobody will ever fault you for that.”

“Namu amida butsu… I know I can always rely on you, but…” it was only alright to ask for help when he was normal. It was only acceptable to rely on others when he wasn’t disabled. It was only okay to need someone to be there for him when he wasn’t seen as subhuman for something he couldn’t control.

When he wasn’t any of those things, he was weak, he was useless, he was needy and pitiful. He wasn’t someone who could help, who could stand high by himself or be independent. It was an unfairness he knew, a double standard nobody else noticed. He couldn’t be strong and carry the weight of several lives over his shoulders on the battlefield and then need help to navigate through a new place, otherwise he was a liar.

He despised lies, even if in that life his words were mainly lies and half truths. When he presented himself by the name of Midoriya Izuku he wasn’t lying, but he wasn’t entirely honest either; it was his name, just as Himejima Gyomei was his name too. Because he was the most honest to himself when he was the most obscured, with his face covered and form blurred by the things he had hidden in the corner of his closet for the old sleepless nights he went to fight for humanity, hidden from the law.

“The moment I require support it means I cannot be strong…”

His mom’s breath hitched and with a trembling hand she caressed his forehead. “Don’t believe anything they say, everybody needs help no matter what,” she sobbed, with tears falling into the mattress. And he cried too, because admission felt weak and he couldn’t afford being weak.

Yushiro looked at the two requests for support items from both Uzui and Himejima. In all honesty, he found it hilarious that both of them were of the same age, were going to the same place, were already in contact with one another, and still wanted him to keep from the other their physical age. And sure, he would, but they would find each other within seconds when they met in real life so that was pretty counterproductive.

It wasn’t much what they asked, and to be fair he did say he was going to enlist himself as an official support specialist for UA so he could give them their nichirin weapons in a way they’d be allowed to use them. What he didn’t expect from it was the batshit crazy principal being a literal rat, said rat figuring out within seconds that he wasn’t a human, and only asking him to fill in the gaps of old historical events in exchange for his silence. All in all a great deal in his opinion, even if Chachamaru tried to attack him and he had to lock the cat away.

He had a forge in one of his rooms, barely used for centuries but still a useful skill to have, especially in that moment. Uzui had left his old swords to him, going by the same reincarnation logic they came up with the code for. All he had to do was sharpen them and take off the rust. Himejima, however, was a challenge. His weapon was famously hard to make back then from what he’d heard, and while he had kept the broken metal and snapped chains in case the nichirin was ever needed desperately it still needed a heavy helping hand.

“This shouldn’t be too hard, right Chacha?” he asked the calico cat next to him, which was happily eating a mouse. Good thing that hadn’t happened with the UA principal, in all honesty the rat’s intelligence should have been considered as a weapon; the last thing he wanted was to be stuck on the opposing side of it.

The diva cat only looked at him as if he’d offended them personally. Him, Yushiro, who had fed them for literal centuries.

“I despise your attitude, I swear I’ll hide you from Himejima, he pampers you too much.”

Monster
New album “Temple Children” will be released in a week. I am very joyous at news of everyone enjoying all of the songs so far, best of wishes to everyone.

YourLocalHomo
Help?!?! New Monster release and with previous warning?! HUH?????

EndeavwhoreHater1
“Best of wishes”?!?!! This feels like a threat help-

EndeavwhoreHater1
Wait shit, it might be genuine… I just remembered my reaction to the two previous ones ߹𖥦߹

DesperationInNegation
Monster really just drops things out of the blue all the time and now he gave us a teaser??? H E L L O?!?! I mean, lets fucking go and all of that but I fear for our future…

EndeavwhoreHater
Starting spring strong with a new album and classes cannot be good for teenagers

EndeavwhoreHater1
Bitch you copied my username

EndeavwhoreHater
I copied your username? Listen here you lying piece of cultured shit, who has the number after the username? Not me, so shut it <3

mansplainslaughterwhore
My guys, you both hate the man so just get on with it and smooch it out

EndeavwhoreHater
Disgusting, I am simultaneously older and younger than you think. Do not think you can estimate me.

EndeavwhoreHater1
Old ass fetus

“Izuku, did you pack some tissues?” his mom asked from behind, fretting as Izuku attempted to close the backpack as it was stuffed to the brim. Perhaps sometime soon he’d get a larger one, although he’d prefer not to throw that one away until he absolutely had to.

He sighed fondly, “yes mom.”

“And your hanky? You can’t leave without your hanky dear!”

“Yes mom, it is here,” he answered, feeling the soft fabric brush against his hand as he finally got the schoolbag to close. “I must get going now, I do not wish to be late.”

He slung it over his shoulders and reached for the door—the UA uniform constricting around his arms, though not as much as the one of Aldera—opening it just as his mom called out his name. He turned around, a quiet “namu” escaping him. “I know you’ll do great things dear, I’m so proud of you,” she sniffled, and with tears in his eyes he smiled softly and nodded before leaving.

He stood at the station patiently, going over one of the songs he was about to publish soon in his mind. He already had them finished, he only needed to refine the album photo… Sure, it was mostly details that would most likely go unnoticed with the most-likely-blurry photo he’d take when he finished it, but it still mattered to him.

The small details like the cracking post from Kaigaku and Oguri’s roughhousing that he never got to fix, the glassless windows cold air seeped through during winter, the missing tiles from the ceiling the children—his children—once tried to sell for more food or the sloppily patched together walls he barely got to keep standing through the years with his kids’ help all mattered to him. A part of him hoped that like Uzui and himself they had been reborn, that they’d realize it was him and reach out, but he knew how unlikely that was; for all he knew, Uzui was an old man at the time while he was barely in his teens, the odds of being reborn at the same time were already extremely slim.

The train arrived and he got inside, much more empty when compared to the day of the entrance exam. He was actually fairly certain there were still spare seats in the carriage he had gotten into with how quiet it was. A man was taking a call from his job, and a mother was taking her bored child to daycare as well.

The train came into a stop, its doors opening with an electric whirring and multiple footsteps walking in. Someone sat next to him, and without a need for the person to speak he knew who it was with ease. “Hello Kyoka-chan, how are you doing?” he asked softly, turning his head towards her.

Kyoka huffed amicably and admitted, “I wanted to see how long it would take you to notice, curse your flamboyant hearing.” She leaned against him, with her right arm slightly forward as she used her phone for something. The thin line of her earphone jack was extended, brushing against his arm as she made it connect to her phone. He wasn’t sure how it fit perfectly, but when he asked about it she explained she had some degree of control over the kind of tip her ears had which made no sense in his opinion, but when compared against people capable of levitation or creating fire out of nothing he wasn’t all that surprised.

Kyoka was listening to a song, bobbing her head to the rhythm as she scrolled across her social media. Izuku himself clasped his hands together and rested his head back against the rumbling glass, quietly praying besides his friend to ease the forever gnawing discomfort from the instinctual relation of trains and the late flame hashira. His heartbeat steadied into a calmer pace, and his thoughts slowed down to a pace he was much more used to.

His friend began humming to the song’s lyrics, a familiar upbeat tune with heavy percussion she imitated with her free hand thumping against her leg. It was Rengoku’s song that Gyomei wrote. It didn’t feel right knowing that she was listening to it on the train, not when his death was with such an event.

Kyoka hit him lightly with her elbow, snapping him out of his tearful thoughts. “Nervous? Who would’ve thought greenie,” she teased, an edge of worry on her amused tone.

“In a way,” he admitted, placing his hands on his lap. “I hold a particular dislike for trains, although it is nothing of worry.”

She sighed quietly, unless it was accompanied by any expression most people wouldn’t have noticed with how silent it was. He hadn’t noticed, but there was a tenseness in her muscles since the train had begun to move. “I also find riding in trains unflashy, but there’s this song that just makes me feel better about them,” she explained, and Izuku prayed to Buddha that it wasn’t the one he thought about.

Of course, things just couldn’t go right. “You’ve heard of Monster, right? There’s this song of his called Flame and a part of it is with the character situated in a train and he saves a bunch of people just like that! It’s incredibly flamboyant and just makes me think clearer about how irrational it is, ya’ know?” she rambled on and on, continuing to sing praises to Rengoku and—much more awkward to the situation, in his opinion—to his work.

Izuku didn’t know what to do, it would make him feel narcissistic to say he enjoyed it even when it was true that he was content with his interpretation of Rengoku, but then it would have been more awkward to lie and say he hadn’t listened to the song. One thing that was completely out of the question however, was admitting he wrote it. It wasn’t embarrassment, but rather an impending adulation he knew Kyoka would give he wasn’t waiting for. He didn’t write songs for fame or money, but simply to tell the story of those he knew. Sure, establishing a friendship with Uzui was a great thing now that there was no reason to avoid attachment with the looming threat of death hanging over their heads was a great thing, and the extra money his mom refused to let him use to help with the bills that he still paid without her knowledge was certainly a good thing.

In the end, ignoring the bead of uncomfortable sweat running down the back of his neck, Izuku decided to promise, “I will listen to it next time then, if it works as you say.”

The train came to a stop and they got down to head to UA. Kyoka led the way and Izuku followed close behind, although he was beginning to memorize how many turns from to station until they arrived he still found it preferable to follow his friend until he was certain he knew the route to memory so he wouldn’t get lost. She raised her left arm to see her wrist, with her heartbeat immediately picking up as she took his arm to drag him across the hallways, yelling, “we’re going to be late, come on!”

“Namu amida butsu, do you know where the classroom is?” he asked, following close behind as they ran with their footsteps echoing all across the vast and empty corridors. In all honesty, he half expected the answer to be a dry “no” after her laughter, having run across what easily could’ve been the entirety of the campus with the singular exception of their class.

“We’re here!” Kyoka proclaimed after several minutes of running around. “Damn, this door is huge.”

Izuku was the one to open it, ignoring the muffled screaming and fighting behind the door to avoid walking in already crying. It was a cold and smooth metal that he found under his hand, and despite that it was still lightweight and easy to move; and that was generally speaking, not compared to his standards.

“Don’t put your legs on the desk!” the voice of the insensible boy from the examination sounded out, just as he made a chopping motion into the air. “Don’t you think that’s disrespectful towards your classmates?”

“No, as a matter of fact I don’t think so! Which middle school are you from either way you two bit extra?” Bakugou crudely yelled back, loud enough to make him wince reflexively despite being across the other side of the room.

Kyoka brought her hands up to cover her ears and complained in a very public way, “how unflamboyant, and you’d think UA would have actually heroic students.”

A boy laughed behind them as he entered the classroom, loudly and obnoxiously stating his opinion, “so much for UA’s revered prestige indeed. My name is Monoma Neito, and yours?”

“Hello Monoma-kun, I am Midoriya Izuku and my friend is Jirou Kyoka,” Izuku kindly replied, noticing Kyoka kept quiet instead of taking over the conversation as usual. He extended his hand and Monoma shook it in kind, going to claim a seat for himself after the interaction. Once he was away Izuku thought aloud, “he seemed to be a nice person, I believe the two of you would get along well.”

“Uh huh,” Kyoka hummed, still stunned into silence. That was uncommon of her, truly so. It made him worried, with pinched eyebrows and tearing eyes he waved one of his hands in front od her face to snap her back into focus. “Yeesh, don’t do that! Seriously, I did it once and you never forgot… I get it, it’s unflamboyant, alright.”

Izuku smiled cheekily and hummed as he turned away, actually having forgotten that she did that when she was a kid, or, well, a younger kid.

“Hello, I’m Iida Tenya from Soumei private academy,” the stiff boy who attempted to get Bakugou to behave earlier presented himself, walking up to him with an extended hand.

Izuku nodded and shook his hand in turn, “nice to meet you Iida-kun, my name is Midoriya Izuku. I thank you for attempting to get Bakugou-kun to behave, but it is a pointless endeavor as it stands.”

“I bet that unflamboyant brat is the one who gives stray dogs rabies,” Kyoka intervened with a laugh. Izuku turned his head around to face her and narrowed his eyes with disappointment to give the closest thing to a glare he could manage, making her stand back down and mutter, “I’ll go take a seat…”

“Ah so that’s his name– never mind. Midoriya-kun, I must hand it to you, you divined the actual nature of the practical exam, didn’t you?” Iida asked seriously, turning his head up at him as his fists were balled together stiffly at his side.

“Namu?”

“I– I was blind to it!” Not as blind as he was but sure, Izuku got the idea of what Iida meant, “and you were astonishingly better! I hate to admit, but you were the better man…”

He shook his head solemnly and stated, “from what I’ve noticed you ask far too much of yourself. The only way to learn is from mistakes, so do not hold yourself to it nor beat yourself up over it.”

Iida stiffened at the advice, Izuku’s words taking him by surprise. The boy didn’t reply, but the reborn slayer knew his expression must’ve been speaking for him rather than his words. There were two things that he couldn’t figure out by himself due to his disability: written text and expressions.

Someone opened the door and walked from behind, coming up with a peppy step. “Oh, it’s you! The curly haired boy!” she said. Izuku recognized the voice from the girl of the exam and turned around.

“Yes… how are you faring? Your injuries must’ve been severe after getting stuck under that boulder,” he confirmed, ignoring the familiar popping explosions that came from the back of the room as best as he could.

The girl frantically shook her head and acknowledged, “don’t worry about it! Recovery girl’s quirk got me all fixed up after the exam. But I knew you’d pass! There was no way you wouldn’t make it, by the way, I loved how awesome that attack was! Just whoosh and then whoom by the other side before BAM and the robot broke down in an instant!”

The girl continued talking, jumping from one topic to another cheerfully. She was somewhat like Kanroji in that way, there was no need for him to say anything as she guided the conversation in a natural way. A good kid, upbeat and positive as she rambled about anything and everything… and what was that shuffling against the ground? Fabric? No, not only fabric, it had weight with it.

“If you’re looking for friends do it elsewhere,” a gruff voice came from the fabric. It was a person that was inside of it?! He couldn’t hear his heartbeat at all! “This is the department of heroics, there’s no time for that.”

He came to the realization that he had heard the man’s voice before, recognizing it from the time he was almost caught as a vigilante. Shoot, hopefully the hero didn’t put two and two together about his fighting style; he didn’t wish to worry his mom about his nighttime activities. At the same time he figured that out, the chatter from the classroom faded to a stop as the hero stepped out of the fabric and he criticized the group, “it took you 8 seconds to quiet down. Well, life is short kids, you all need to learn responsibility.”

There were mutters and murmurs of confusion from the classroom about who was the hero—most likely due to the fact that underground heroes were largely unknown, if he had to guess—leading to the man presenting himself, “I am your homeroom teacher, Aizawa Shota.” His bag (?) shuffled as he searched for something, pulling it out and showing it to the class as he elaborated, “now go put these on and meet me at the P.E. grounds, quickly.”

Aizawa left briskly after that and the students quickly raced towards the door, leaving him and Kyoka behind. “He asked us to change into the gym clothes, so come on!” she explained, noticing his confusion at what they were supposed to change to. He nodded and gave her his gratitude and followed her to get the other uniform.

Deku was the last of the damn extras to walk into the changing room, taking his gym uniform while the other extras were already changing. Despite what it could’ve seen like, Katsuki was a very perceptive and logical person in most aspects of battle, if not all. He recognized that UA would actually give him a challenge with all the strong quirks from the kids in heroics, and he was damn looking for it! From the boys in the class, Katsuki was seemingly the third strongest one physically, falling close behind to shitty hair and octopus; still, pretty damn good in his opinion.

That was until he saw Deku take off his blazer and what the fuck? The white button up shirt from UA could barely close over all those damn muscles, and he wasn’t even flexing! His body looked like All Might’s second coming, how the hell did he keep that hidden for so long?!

And to hell with it, he wasn’t the only one staring in shock as Deku quickly took his shirt off, with the crappy conversations quieting down or coming to shushed whispers about his build. Where and how the hell could Deku get all that bulk since he last saw him in the Aldera shithole, what, a week ago? He was sure when the nerd walked into the room that he saw something weird in him with the uniform, but not muscle!

“It sure looks like you’ve worked hard for all that muscle, huh?” tail commented, one of the few still relatively unfazed from Deku’s absurdly exaggerated physique. He sighed and continued, “I can’t help but be envious, that’s amazing.”

“Yeah dude, that’s so manly!” shitty hair exclaimed, flexing his bicep and showing it proudly.

Another blond with short piss yellow hair—unlike Katsuki’s lighter, more neutral blond hair—brought one of his hands dramatically to his forehead as if he was a princess about to faint and preached, “lo and behold, the standard we have all subjected ourselves to!”

Deku didn’t stop dressing himself as he nodded and stated, “I’m grateful for all of your kind words; but there is no reason to subject yourself to such standards, this was the result of several years of arduous work so please do not rush or force yourselves to that…”

Several years. Several YEARS?! What the fuck? Stupid Deku had never had muscles at middle school, he’d have noticed with how much he threw the damn monk around and shit. Deku wasn’t skinny, but he wasn’t a bodybuilder or anything! What the hell? And when he was about to confront Deku about it he had already left. IT HADN’T EVEN BEEN A MINUTE.

Damn it, Katsuki scowled, continuing to change in the following minutes before stomping out into the P.E. grounds or whatever. In there Mr. Hobo man was sipping from a jelly pack that probably had more chemicals than sustenance, with four eyes standing stiffly to the side while Ears was talking to Deku about something loudly.

How the fuck is ears so jacked too?! What the hell does auntie give them to eat?

Some time passed and more extras came around slowly until there were 20 of them before their hobo teacher stashed the empty piece of shimmery plastic somewhere in that drab, dark uniform, and droned on, “it took you 10 minutes to get changed and here. If you are going to be heroes you can’t waste around any time at all, just a second can make you be far too late so you better learn to be quicker. Now, we are doing a quirk apprehension test.”

“But aren’t we supposed to go to a school-wide assembly and get to know the campus?” pink cheeks—the extra who was talking to Deku earlier, who knows or cares fro whatever reason—piped up shyly.

Hobo man apathetically disclosed, “if you want to help people there’s no time for all of that, so we’re getting to training already. The school’s reputation for freedom extends to teachers, and that means I get to choose how to teach you to be the strongest you can be. Softball pitch, standing long jump, 50 meter dash, endurance running, grip strength test, sustained sideways jumps, upper body exercises and seated toe touch; these are all things you know from middle school in which you weren’t allowed to use your quirks. Well, Bakugou-kun, what was the longest you could throw a softball at middle school?”

“Tch, 67 meters.”

The hobo threw a softball at him, “go stand in the circle and try doing that with your quirk. Don’t hold back.”

“You got it,” he grinned, stretching his right arm and flexing his sweaty palm before taking the ball in that one, throwing it with a mighty blast off into the distance. “DIE!”

A device beeped on hobo’s hand and he turned it around to show in red analog-clock-like text «705.2m». Over 700 meters, hell yeah that was good, and those damn extras knew it too.

“705 meters? That’s unreal!”

“Awesome, that looks so fun!”

“We can really use our quirks like that? That’s heroics for you!”

The air became tense around the teacher, who snapped at them with a serious expression that spoke of experience, “you think this is fun? That you’re here to be chummy for the following three years before putting your life on the line just like that? This isn’t a game where you can do things for the thrill of the moment without consequences, so how about this? Whoever gets last place will be immediately expelled.”

Complaints resounded from the extras, practically all of them attempting to bargain some leeway. Not all of them though, Katsuki was completely alright with getting rid of the weak, ponytail and a candy cane looking kid didn’t react at all, ears muttered something under her breath but did nothing further and Deku simply nodded. Deku nodded, as if he wasn’t worried or aware that despite all the damn muscle he could hide for years or get in a week he was still at a complete disadvantage.

It was stupid of Deku to try to be a hero, no matter how he cheated his way through the entrance exam he was still quirkless, and the only leverage he could somehow get from that would be from a gun; which for obvious reasons he wouldn’t be able to use. Good, better if he was gone and safe, heck, he wouldn’t be mad if he just quit heroics for general education there at UA even!

“Keep quiet, all of you, or I’ll make you break apart a boulder without using your quirks to stay at my class,” hobo man threatened, the air taking an unnatural quality to it for an instant as something in his body felt empty and missing. It was horrifying, stiffening his body unconsciously to the point that releasing his explosions by reflex was completely forgotten. And what did he even mean breaking a boulder without their quirks? Where would he even get 20 boulders for all of them?!

The batshit crazy hobo continued on, “natural disasters, ego-mad villains, you will come across all kinds of calamities if you become heroes. If you spend these three years having fun instead of focusing there is no doubt, you will die. That’s the truth of heroics, no matter how strong or promising you are all it takes is one slip-up and that’s the end of the line for you; luckily for you, I don’t intend to let that happen. So well then, plus ultra and get on with it.”

The mood changed and there was a feeling of invigoration in his chest. Hell yeah, that was what he was at UA for! He knew the dangers, risks and tribulations but to hell with it! The hobo had some backbone to adhere to his words from what he saw, a kind of experience that could only be received from witnessing it first hand intertwined with his voice when he spoke. Still, his only thought was, I could do better.

They started with the 50 meter dash, going at it in pairs of two each time. The best one so far had been four-eyes with three-something seconds under his belt, no shit about that one though, his quirk made him fast as hell with those engines. Almost all of the other groups with nothing extraordinary to show for themselves passed, and then it was his and Deku’s turn, the second to last ones.

Katsuki stood at the start, his arms crossed in front of his face and palms flexed against one another. He had kept them balled together despite his excitement to have more sweat, and he was about to put it to good use. Deku was next to him, crouched down with his hands at the ground and his feet lying against the thingamajigs that served for impulse when running. He had never actually done the tests they were doing, the teachers never thought he could after all. It didn’t matter, Katsuki was going to blast off without a care.

“Begin,” hobo man said, and Katsuki yelled the name of his move as he shot forward, crossing the finish line in 4.13 seconds. Hell yeah! Second best so far, Deku’s time hadn’t even rang yet, did he run off to another side or something? He wouldn’t be surprised if so.

Hobo man walked over to the machine and thumped it twice. “This one’s brand new, it should’ve been able to take it… is the rat playing tricks again?” he grumbled, and besides him Deku was standing. What the fuck? When did he get there?

“Astonishing,” four eyes gaped, “I couldn’t even follow his movement!”

The heck? Didn’t people with speed quirks have better reaction speed or something so they wouldn’t go face-first towards a wall or off a cliff? The hell did he mean that he couldn’t follow Deku’s movement?

“That was awesome Midoriya-kun!” pink cheeks ran at him, bouncing up and down cheerfully. “Was that your quirk? Is it teleportation? But I didn't see you use it at the exam though… oh! Maybe it is-”

“Nah, that wasn't his quirk,” Ears butted in, slinging an arm over Deku's shoulder as she brought him down to her height. “He's just flamboyant like that. I've had the theory for years that it's something his mom feeds him, but as much as I go to his house I never seem to quite get it.”

“Is that so? I am ashamed as a person with a speed quirk if that is what's possible to achieve without such a quirk,” four eyes lamented, but to hell with that; Katsuki knew Deku cheated somehow, probably with ears' help. “Nevertheless, are you not one of the only two students missing for the exercise?”

“Yeah, me and pipsqueak,” she pointed at a pikachu-looking kid—blame his uncle for his knowledge on pre-quirk era pop culture—who in turn complained something he couldn’t be paid to care about, “but I've got time seeing that,” she scoffed, pointing back at the teacher who was currently in a phone call complaining, “no, what do you mean it’s alright? It didn’t measure a student’s time! Excessive speed fallacy? Damn it, what am I supposed to mark down then? And DON’T say ‘very fast,’ or I swear I’ll stop showing up to the meetings.”

“Next two students go on ahead,” hobo man droned on, standing off to the side. Ears said her goodbyes and went to the starting line with pikachu, both using the thingamajig as it was supposed to be used. Nothing worth noting then.

But that wasn’t fucking it, as ears shot off and instantly appeared on the other side of the finish line. What the double fuck? It was obvious her quirk had nothing to do with speed because of her earphone jacksons or whatever they were called. So how the fuck did she do it? It made no damn sense! He saw it, he knew he did, she just vanished and immediately appeared on the other side. Hobo man didn’t even looked surprised, just muttering something about bringing that upon himself.

But okay, that was just an outlying case. And sure, the damn extras would undoubtedly do good on the grip strength test with all those damn muscles (HOW DID THE MACHINES BREAK? NOT EVEN OCTOPUS COULD BREAK IT!), and the sideways jumps were something pretty standard that there was no clear way to use a quirk to excel, but the others weren’t something Deku would be able to excel at. Not while being quirkless.

But then he was proved wrong, again and again.

Standing long jump, Deku jumped over the entire sand pit and only stopped when hobo-man intervened to pull him back into the ground with his scarf before he crashed onto a tree.

The pitch, Deku threw the ball over his record. Who cared by how much, he fucking beat Katsuki.

Fuck. Fuck, shit, damn, to hell with it all. Deku was quirkless. He was born quirkless, grew up quirkless, and lived through everything while quirkless. Before Katsuki knew it he had blasted his way to Deku to pull him down by the collar of his uniform.

“What the hell is this Deku?! Explain now, shitrag– nghh!” a thick cloth caught him, the scarf from hobo man. It pulled him back and the unnatural feeling of emptiness came again, and as he tried to use his quirk at it to push through the explosions never came.

“Attacking a classmate merits an expulsion in my book Bakugou-kun, and I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in my class. Go to the principal’s office and tell him what you’ve done once he goes back there, and I will find out if you don’t go,” hobo man threatened, releasing the hold of his quirk on him.

And Katsuki didn’t know how to react. What was he supposed to say to that? It was his first day at UA and he was already going to be expelled. He was going to be expelled, all because useless, quirkless, blind Deku was a liar and hid his quirk from him all those damn years. He should’ve been nothing more than a pebble in his path, not a boulder falling over him!

“He’s quirkless?”

“That’s so sad!”

“I thought Izuku-kun would be a great hero one day…”

“I didn’t even know it was possible to be born without a quirk.”

“My dad says people born without quirks aren’t even people.”

Katsuki looked at Izuku with wide eyed surprise. They were lying, all of those other kids had to be lying. Izuku was going to be the best hero in the shadows, while Katsuki would be recognized as the number one of Japan and then the world. Them calling him quirkless would be saying that he lied, that he was weak and he would never be a hero.

He walked over to Izuku, ignoring the whispers the teachers tried to hush and the stolen glances to the corner his taller friend was at. He was playing that flute by himself, repeating one same tune time and time again while changing little things that Katsuki couldn’t pinpoint in the way he played it.

“Izuku, the other crybabies are saying you don’t have a quirk. Why are they lying?”

Izuku looked at him, stopping the song he was playing with sad eyes. “They aren’t lying Katsuki, I don’t have one.”

Katsuki felt his eyes begin to water but he didn’t cry. Instead, he clenched his fists and grit his teeth. “Then why did you lie? You promised we would be heroes together! You broke our promise!”

“I didn’t lie, I’ll still become a hero. I just have to work harder than others for it.”

“LIAR! STOP LYING YOU MEANIE!”

Katsuki began crying, and the teachers had to separate him from Izuku so he wouldn’t hurt the quirkless weakling.

The quirkless weakling looked betrayed, holding one of his hands with the other, passing his fingers over the knuckles. “I’m not lying…”

The exercises finished without any further issue, with Midoriya and Jirou sharing first place after Shota couldn’t measure in an exact way several of their trials with the recommendation students taking the two places behind. Most of the students had already left to change back into their normal uniform, with the sole exception of Midoriya. Of course.

“Is Bakugou’s expulsion truly necessary?” he asked, furrowing his eyebrows and clenching his fists. His blank gaze was definite, serious and sure on his posture of the situation despite falling off from him.

Shota tiredly enunciated, “he attempted an attack towards you Midoriya, that merits an expulsion in any place.”

“I could have dodged. There was no true danger to anyone but himself in his brash actions, and his expulsion will lead to counterproductive results,” the boy shot back, not disrespectfully as opposed to doubtful. There was some backbone in there, good. “He has potential, which I am sure you recognize sensei. So why expel him?”

“His ego makes him unpredictable, the moment someone else is better than him he will explode as he did to you. That needed to be stanched before it got worse and evolved into a superiority complex. I’m not going to expel him, but there are going to be consequences for his brash and dangerous behavior, which I am almost entirely certain he had never gotten before due to his quirk,” Shota reiterated blankly, looking at the inside of his scarf with the familiar patterns stitched on it. Blank red fabric and a patterned green and yellow patch.

Midoriya murmured a prayer—Himejima’s mannerisms rubbed off on the kid, no doubt about it—and nodded to ask for forgiveness, “I see then, apologies for my rudeness.”

Shota sighed and shook his head. “Don’t worry about it kid, just go get changed already. Tell me if you need help or anything.”

“I’ll be alright, but thank you for the offer,” Midoriya bowed and left briskly, leaving Shota alone with the elephant in the room, or, in that case, the pro hero in the field.

With an internal groan, he went to the spying number one hero who was anything but discreet as he peeked, not to mention he was wasting what little time he already had for hero work. “Aizawa-san, you liar!” the hero loudly proclaimed, placing his hands on his hips stiffly.

“Hello All Might, why were you spying on my class?” he grunted.

“I- I was not spying at all! I was simply passing by and decided to stay and watch, now do not evade the question!” All Might sputtered, waving his hands in front of him like a child caught stealing from the cookie jar before going back to chastising him. It was going to be a loooooooong interaction.

Shota apathetically stated, “what question? You just called me a liar.”

“A logical ruse? April fools was a week ago!” Shota could not care less about that day, although he did make sure to check his coffee that morning in case Kyojuro had gotten any funny ideas. His coffee had remained untouched, but his husband refused to take off a pair of ridiculous sunglasses with a mustache for the entire day. “You expelled your entire first grade class last year! What changed your mind this time around?”

“I simply saw potential in them, that was all. The last class didn’t show any, so I expelled them before they could throw their lives away fighting.”

Far too many had already laid their lives down in battle, and an uncomfortably large portion of those had been in front of him, had been for him. He was going to make sure that there would be as little unnecessary deaths as possible this time around, and if that meant crushing the dreams of teenage kids then so be it. Giyuu was done with seeing people jump into their graves.

All Might staggered, and then asked, “so why did you act as if you were going to expel Bakugou-shonen if you were not going to? That was also lying.”

“Believe me that if I was sure the kid was not going to fall into a vigilante pipeline I would’ve, but the best thing is to keep him here at UA where he can be monitored and there are resources to help him work through his issues. His attitude is a problem, but if he can overcome that he does hold potential.”

Shota walked past the number one hero and went to Nedzu’s office. It was going to be a long day indeed.

Chapter Text

Izuku walked into the classroom to find it in absolute shambles. A couple of students were trying to maintain some semblance of order over their desperation for gossip; namely Iida, as he demanded people to get to their seats in an orderly fashion and to keep quiet until a teacher or adult in charge arrived. It was a noble endeavor, but sadly one that proved far too idealistic to be achieved in such a way.

Of course, there were others who also attempted the same in a smaller scale. A girl was simply asking the class to moderate their volume, and a boy with a large tail was helping as another voice of reason. Still, the youthful energy coming from everyone there made Gyomei smile as he took his seat, the one that was coincidentally in front of Monoma’s.

Speaking of Monoma, he likely had to have a talk with the boy. Apparently his quirk allowed him to copy the one of whoever he touched, and he attempted to do that with him, but for obvious reasons it didn’t work out. Izuku had agreed to explain his quirk to him after the school day ended and why it didn’t work for him during the endurance running activity as opposed to him. Hopefully their relation would remain cordial and the boy would not spread around that fact, Izuku had already had enough negative treatment across both lives that was centered around something out of his control.

“Oh hey Izuku-kun, it took you a while to come back,” Kyoka noted, speaking from behind him as she was engaged in conversation with Monoma. “Man, did you get lost or something? Its the first day, everyone asks for directions, there’s nothing unflamboyant about that.”

Izuku turned his head back to face her and shook it. “It was nothing of the sort, I simply confirmed some things with Aizawa-sensei,” he explained patiently, placing one of his elbows against the back of the chair to lean against it comfortably.

Iida was involved in a complication on the other side of the room, completely deviating from it as a group of students began chanting “fight, fight, fight,” and he turned away from the previous argument he was involved in to explain why that behavior was unbecoming of them. Over the chatter and racket, Monoma leaned up close and questioned both Kyoka and Izuku, “say, the two of you seem awfully close. Are you sure you’re just friends and there is nothing else in there?”

He couldn’t even deign a response to that. It was an absurdly baffling thought! While Izuku technically was the same age as she was, Gyomei most definitely was not, and even if that wasn’t it he had never thought about romance unless prompted by somebody else. In all honesty, he had half forgotten that was a real thing.

Just thinking about the question felt wrong in far too many levels. If anything he felt paternal towards her, not whatever gave Monoma that perturbing idea.

Kyoka had a similar reaction though much more external, loudly stating her boundaries and stating, “he’s like an old man more often than not! If anything he’s the old best friend from a 9-to-5 job that adopts without asking the young intern dude, shut up!”

Did she smack him? It sounded like she smacked him. Oh, no, she was just pulling at his ear. Wait, shoot, physical aggression was not good. “Kyoka-chan, please let go of his ear! He already understood,” Izuku sputtered, his hands hovering over them before he took Kyoka’s arm to coax her into peace.

“Don’t go assuming things like that, its unflamboyant,” she huffed, jerking her arm back only to smack him again in the back of the head. “Cheeky brat.”

“Kyoka-chan!” Izuku chastised.

He was almost entirely sure she stuck her tongue out at him, and if she didn’t she most certainly did something of the sort.

Monoma laughed, sincere and heartily. He didn’t appear to have taken it personally, and actually sounded relieved when he apologized teasingly, “alright, alright. But you can’t call him an old man when you call me a cheeky brat and Kaminari-kun a pipsqueak, it makes you sound like a retired and geriatric grunch.”

“What? Ugh, you make aging sound so drab, it’s unflamboyant!” Kyoka argued, leaning back against a chair comfortably. “I’d be perfectly happy to get to retire after some years of hero work and live happily until I become a dried up prune. All of this “aging is bad” schmuck is a marketing strategy to get people to buy unnecessary skincare.”

Izuku did agree with that opinion, he would enjoy if everything allowed him to live plentfully to an old age but he recognized his importance relying more on the battlefield. Gyomei had already lived and died as a weapon as his worth stood on it, and with the strength Izuku had amassed he could do the same again. After all, it was all he knew how to do; survive just until the next battle, right until the moment there were no more. He had promised the Oyakata-sama that he would not allow any more deaths to occur within the corps, but not even that he could manage. In that way, it was fitting he died last in the battle, after he couldn’t protect anyone he couldn’t protect himself either, and when the battle ended the weapon was discarded.

“Whoa– hey, hey Midoriya-kun, why are you crying all of a sudden?” Monoma urgently asked. Izuku hadn’t even noticed he was crying at the time, so he wiped his tears with a prayer as the boy coerced an answer out of Kyoka entirely astonished, “and why are you not worried? Aren’t the two of you friends?”

“Chill out brat, he cries for anything and everything. I once saw him cry because someone littered,” Kyoka deadpanned, mentioning what was surprisingly one of the more tame examples. At least she didn’t mention the time he broke down in tears because somebody abandoned an entire litter of kittens out in the rain, which in his opinion was an entirely appropriate response but when it was said out loud it sounded ridiculous.

Izuku nodded and clarified, “I apologize for causing worry, but it is true I cry for quite a lot of things. I simply thought and agreed about Kyoka-chan’s opinion on the matter.” Should he say the last part he had in his mind? It would lighten up the mood, so it likely was a good idea, even if he was also slandering himself in the process. “Although, the way she said it did make her sound like an old man.”

Kyoka gasped dramatically and preached, “however did you know I’m actually a 67 year old man who was reborn after a life of tragedy? And here I was, thinking I kept my past well hidden from the world!”

From the other side of the classroom Kaminari chuckled, “six seven.”

Almost everyone promptly yelled back, “shut up!” as they threw various utensils and… was that a pillow? Where did they even get a pillow?! Poor boy, although the joke—if it even was supposed to be a joke—did not make any sense. Perhaps it was an internet joke, he didn’t spend much of his time on social media and whatever he did was mostly to answer questions about his work or to chat with Kyoka, Uzui or Yushiro.

Ignoring that, Izuku joked back—although how much of it was a joke was dubious to him—with a tearful grin, “what a coincidence, given I was an almost thirty year old samurai. Our old souls must have found each other.”

“Wow, the two of you are impossible. I’d wish you to have fun at bingo night at the retirement home, but bingo is anything but that,” Monoma flatly quipped, and behind him and Kyoka came quiet footsteps came from two kids.

“What was that about bingo night?” The boy who spoke about his muscles in the locker room asked, Izuku should probably get his name sometime soon. “Do you do community service in retirement homes?”

Monoma snorted and explained, “nah, they were just joking about being old farts in a past life they both casually remember. Life’s no fun if you don’t poke the bear once in a while, you know?”

“So who was supposedly 67?” the other boy meekly asked from behind of his classmate.

“That was me, the most flamboyant old man that had ever walked on earth!” Kyoka proudly stated, digging deeper into her grave; at least Izuku already had one when it came to that. “So the four of you better respect your elders, you hear me?”

Izuku couldn’t help but break out in laughter alongside the kids, although it likely was for different motives. The fact that it was a teenager telling that to him—having lived through 41 years in all technicality—was what made him laugh, while it was likely the kids were simply laughing because of the joke.

The last bell rang after a few more minutes of amicable conversation, where he learned the names of the other two boys—Ojiro Mashirao and Kouda Koji—and they constantly went back to quip at Izuku and Kyoka due to having called themselves old as a joke. He had a feeling it was going to be a running gag for the rest of the year, but he didn’t mind the openness of that at all.

He stayed behind in the classroom, still in his seat as everyone else left quickly to head back home and rest. Monoma also stayed behind, and Kyoka told him she’d wait for him at the gates to take the train together. “So? What is it? I have to admit I’m curious about it,” Monoma noted with a shrug.

“I’m quirkless,” he admitted, leaving no room for doubt in his words, “your quirk didn’t work on me because there was nothing to copy.”

Izuku braced for the cold shoulder, the distancing, the disdain and the accusations of lying. And yet they never came. “Oh– wow, I didn’t expect that… still, it’s great how you made it into UA despite that,” he stammered, bringing a hand to the back of his neck.

Izuku blinked in surprise, mouth slightly agape as he looked for words. “Namu amida butsu… You’re… not going to say anything else? Is that it?”

“My entire life my quirk has been labeled as “villainous,” and whenever I don’t have a quirk copied I’m basically quirkless, it would be hypocritical to say or think anything rude about that,” Monoma reiterated honestly, sighing after a few seconds of silence. “To be honest I’m envious of how well you performed today, I rely too much on whatever quirk I have copied.”

“Perhaps I could help you train sometime soon,” Izuku offered, thinking back to Genya and how the boy was dedicated to overcome his weaknesses however he could as he slung his schoolbag over his shoulders. “Although I must warn you, it will be a grueling task if you wish to take me upon it.”

Monoma laughed as he also carried his own backpack and lightly punched him in the arm in a friendly and teasing manner, “bet, it can’t be worse than breaking apart a boulder like Aizawa-sensei wanted us to do.”

“Hmm, perhaps not that but I have been searching for boulders to push around for core strength training…”

“Never mind, you’re batshit crazy. Next thing you’ll tell me is that you have trained over fire.”

Izuku’s silence and avoidant gaze spoke volumes greater than his words ever could, and his classmate’s gaze bore deep into the side of his head. “Genuinely what led you to do that? How do you see fire and think “oh yeah, I should definitely stand over this and burn my ass off to be badass or whatever” and actually commit to doing it.”

He shrugged noncommittally as they made it out the main building, already hearing Kyoka’s distinctively loud and boisterous voice speaking with Kouda and Ojiro at the gates.

“Well hey there, that was flamboyantly quick!” Kyoka pointed out, standing up straight from the pillar she was leaning at.

Izuku nodded and explained, “thankfully it didn’t take much time to clarify things between ourselves. I am truly glad it was resolved so quickly.”

“Midoriya-kun’s horrifying old man, please keep him and his insane training methods away from me and teach me your ways,” Monoma frightfully begged her, most likely alluding to their similar results on the test despite her avoidance to using her quirk for it.

Kouda was the one to speak up, “actually, she was just saying that she trained by running around mountains as a warm up so I don’t think that is an improvement over whatever Midoriya-kun does.”

“I’ll take it if it means there is no training over fire,” the poor boy stated with a trembling voice that made it seem as if he had seen the end of the world.

And Izuku quipped, “if that’s what you prefer I have no issues with such, although I never said there would be training over fire.”

“Well did you imply it?” Ojiro asked, barely holding himself back from laughing at what Izuku assumed was Monoma’s flabbergasted expression. Did he go too far? Thankfully not, as it seemed like everyone considered it a joke so he could hum noncommittally as a non-answer response.

The conversation continued until they reached the station and they each took their respective rides home. It was quiet as he and Kyoka took the ride back, but it wasn’t tense or uncomfortable. Izuku liked it that way, the tranquility, trust, mutual understanding even if it wouldn’t ever be truly reciprocal; never truly explanatory to his ever flowing tears, the sleepless nights, the constant prayers or phantom pains from injuries that body had never gotten.

The next day of classes was much more normal. Bakugou came back to the classroom, although he did sound much more snappy than he was in middle school or the previous day. It likely had to do with the consequences Aizawa spoke of after the exercises, detention, maybe, or an ultimatum as well. Izuku had thought it was going to be a suspension, but that clearly had proved to not be the case.

They had normal classes in the morning, subjects such as english or math that made the other students practically fall asleep in their seats. Izuku didn’t mind the mundanity of that in the least, he much preferred a constant routine over irregular activities.

On english class, their teacher—Present Mic—was outraged they hadn’t presented themselves during homeroom and had them do that for the first half of the class before doing a review. His accommodations to his blindness were discreet, but more than enough. The loud hero read outloud the questions for the entire class, or had one of the other students do it instead. Izuku knew it was only a matter of time until his classmates realized his eyes were odd not because of a mutation, but due to his disability; still, he’d take the peace before the knowledge spread.

At lunch the group from the previous day’s end had seated together. It was nice to be on amicable terms with several people indeed, and the jokes of Kyoka and Izuku being old continued on. Izuku was very surprised to hear that even the cafeteria staff consisted of a hero and it made him think more deeply about what being a hero meant in the current society, although he quickly learned that Lunch Rush had retired a decade ago and dedicated himself to give food to various shelters. It was honorable to continue helping others in that way after reaching the inability to continue with the profession, similarly to how he donated anonymously some of the money he gained from the songs to various charities.

And before they knew it, it was time for the most anticipated moment of the school day: the heroics class. The excitement was palpable in the air with all 20 students sitting still in their places as they waited for their teacher to come in, quiet jitters as bouncing legs or twiddling thumbs brushing quietly against one another with the silence that would have let everyone hear a pin drop.

“I am here! Coming through the door like a normal person!” All Might proclaimed with a booming voice, rushing through the door in what definitely wasn’t a normal way to do it. It was so obviously attention catching that he didn’t even need sight to know that for certain.

“I can’t believe it, All Might is really teaching us!”

“Isn’t that his silver age costume?”

“It is! It is!”

As the number one hero walked over to the front of the class with a pep in his step while whistling a catchy tune, Izuku thought back to the quick meeting he had with the hero several months ago. Knowing of it and paying close attention, it wasn’t hard to notice the way the hero leaned more to his right as he moved, his shallow and pained breaths and the stiffened muscles as the hero kept up appearances. Had Izuku not known of that he would’ve wondered why the man Japan relied on as an image of safety was spending his days as a teacher, but perceiving the situation from a more extended point of view it was likely to ease the country into his eventual retirement while preparing the future generation with his experience.

“Foundational hero studies! For this class we’ll be building up your heroic foundation to various trials,” he loudly and cheerfully announced, flexing his muscles further before quickly showing off something with an outstretched arm. “Let’s jump right in with this, the trial of battle!”

Students muttered with each other excitedly, with Kyoka also turning back to steal a glance at him and Monoma. All Might continued on, “and to go with your first battle, we have prepared your specialized gear based on your suggestions!” The hero pressed a button, and the walls moved with an electrical whirring to reveal several rows lined against one another.

“Get changed and we’ll be ready o go! Everyone meet up at ground Beta! The gear you bring into the battlefield is vitally important, young students. And don’t forget! From here on out, you’re all officially heroes!”

Kyoka quickly changed into the familiar dark clothes with various accessories to allow herself to take a couple of seconds to paint a familiar pattern over her left eye. Aaaaand there it was, quick and easy. She turned around to the weird briefcase thing that held his old nichirin swords, kneeling down and taking them mournfully.

Yushiro had done a flamboyant job restoring them, seeing as they were the same as they were before, the warm, orange metal practically buzzing with energy and power under his grasp. It was nostalgic, what he couldn’t decide was if it was good or bad nostalgia.

They wrapped them around the bandages on their back swiftly and walked out from the changing room and into ground Beta (after asking an upperclassman for directions) where he saw Izuku and… fuck.

How didn’t I notice before?

Kyoka’s tall friend—which she’d known for over 12 years—had a familiar olive green happi with the kanji for the Buddhist chant both Izuku and Himejima (far too much of a coincidence now that he saw it) constantly repeated, draped over a dark costume that largely resembled the demon slayer uniform with rolled up chains hanging from the belt with the distinctive presence of Yushiro’s blood demon art. If somehow, by some unflamboyant form of denial, there was still any doubt of the old stone hashira being reborn as Kyoka’s friend then that last point completely erased it.

Shit, okay, Tengen had to tell Izuku… Himejima… Gyomei? Could he call him that? To hell with it, he had to tell the stone breather that he knew. But did he already know? He wasn’t exactly subtle with his vocabulary, or much less the supposed jokes they did the previous day. And sure, he had changed over the time he grew old but for some reason she acted like when he was young and, well, not hopeful but still somewhat idealistic.

And heck, he wanted to tell him right in that moment. To pull him apart and go “hey, so the joke I said yesterday wasn’t actually a joke and I actually grew up as a shinobi before joining the demon slayer corps and becoming the sound pillar, retired and no, this isn’t an unflamboyant joke, I know you got the weapon from Yushiro.” But of course they weren’t doing that, not when more students were already lining up and anyone could easily overhear.

“Namu amida butsu, is everything alright Kyoka-chan?” her friend asked, speaking in a worried voice with a hand over her shoulder. His voice gave nothing away that he knew, genuine and as worried as whenever it happened before. Maybe he had always known and thought that he didn’t remember until he reached out via messages, or maybe he thought that the purposeful avoidance of that—which wasn’t purposeful at all, by the way—meant he wished to turn over a new leaf from all of that.

“Yeah, just… nervous, I suppose,” she admitted, looking away from the stark red prayer beads slung around his neck. Somehow he'd managed to keep his uniform identical to how it used to be before.

With furrowed eyebrows he worriedly expressed, “that sounds unlike you, is that truly it?” He unclasped his hands to bring one of them up to her forehead, pulling it back when he felt the bejeweled headband to place it beneath it again. “You do not feel ill, do you? Just now you were excited about this.”

She took his hand off her forehead and shook her head, the light blue gemstones stringed together from the headband clicking and clanking together with her movement, and confirmed again, “seriously, I’m all good. Just the realization crashing down on me all of a sudden.”

She wondered, was that too subtle? Can he tell from that that I know? But her friend only patted her head and tearfully reminded her, “if that's the case it is entirely normal, but always know you can trust on me if it is anything else; there is no need to thread through hardships by yourself.”

She smiled against herself, shoving the fatherly hand away and crossing her arms. “I’m not an unflashy, snot nosed child for you to pat my head either, you know?”

“Ah, yes, I almost forgot you have lived a couple of times what I have. Truly a capital crime that I have committed,” he laughed softly, pulling back his hand from her head to clasp them together again. His eyes were soft, carrying a hint of nostalgia over them as he murmured another prayer in the silence of their conversation. Tengen couldn’t say the paternal affection felt all that wrong if it came from him, even if he was already twice as old as he was, counting both lifetimes for both of them.

All Might’s booming voice bellowed across the area as all the class consolidated together, preaching, “all right, now let’s see what you’re made of, you embryos! It’s time for the battle trial!”

An indoor battle trial, according to All Might. Gyomei wasn’t used to interior confrontation, the ones he’d had being mostly half-indoors-half-outdoors or the infinite demon fortress. The thought of doing that, well, struck him as uncomfortable besides it being from one of his weaker areas. Stone breathing took space, at least with the weapon he used for it and his size, and he wasn’t used to being in cramped areas to fight. Now that he had adapted it to a bokken he trusted he could use his breathing style in a much smaller area such as alleyways, of course, though the idea of adapting it to a smaller and much different weapon stemmed from the hoped of separating himself as a vigilante and hopefully a hero through the techniques.

And the reasoning made sense, given the one time he had actually involved himself deeply and taken down a gang (which he was surprised to learn that it made the news) the majority of the action took place in an abandoned warehouse that served as cover for an underground building where the ones in power resided. Those were smarter, more meticulous in their planning and used the space to their advantage. He still knew how they thought in a way, even if it was unlike demons in the raw cruelty or methods the desire for power they held was still the same, and the principle of doing anything for it remained as well.

It would be an exercise performed in pairs, one team against another with different objectives but similar limitations of time and performance. The teams were assigned at random, somewhat making sense to him while simultaneously not. Logically, he knew that apart from patrolling routes the teams to fight against crime were assigned based upon the availability of those nearby, but for grand cases—such as avoiding a nuclear incident, to give as an example the scenario they were currently at—it made no sense to have no previously made teams assigned to the case or for the villains to have been strategically chosen to team up together.

“Very well you overgrown fetuses!”—what even is that way to refer to students? It feels… tactless—“please form an orderly line to assign the teams to you!”

“Come on,” he whispered softly to Kyoka, snapping her out of her thoughts. She had been acting oddly the entire time they had been at the grounds, with an irregular and erratic heartbeat accompanied by shallow breathing. It painted an image of nervousness, but not the one she claimed to have at all, not with the way she was clearly lying through her teeth when he asked about it. He wouldn’t pry if she didn’t wish so, but he’d still be there with her.

The two of them lined up and eventually it came to be their turn to stick their hand into a box full of rubber balls, apparently painted with a letter corresponding to their assigned team. “You’re on team A, I’m on G,” she disclosed without any need for him to say anything. He nodded and expressed his gratitude, to which she replied curtly, “it’s nothing.” It wasn’t nothing, and it wasn’t a response she’d normally give. Something was clearly wrong, but he couldn’t bring himself to share her troubles without her consent to Ojiro, Kouda or Monoma; it would have been a betrayal of her trust in that case, and he was dead set on never betraying anyone.

“Oh, we’re on the same team Midoriya-kun!” Uraraka gleefully exclaimed from behind him, patting him in the shoulder. He couldn’t tell much from her hero uniform, but he could tell that for some reason she had heels as they lightly clacked against the ground with her every step. It seemed unpractical, considering the importance of a firm footing while in the heat of the battle or the likely need for speed she and all others would come across at one point or another.

He nodded kindly and firmly stated, “namu amida butsu, in that case let us both perform the best our capabilities.”

“Right!” she resolved, closing her fists tightly with youthful energy of the kind Gyomei hadn’t had for decades.

All Might cleared his throat loudly to take the stage again, his booming voice proclaiming, “and with that out of the way, the first two teams to do the trial will be…” he stuck his hands dramatically into another pair of boxes to pull out a pair of rubber balls, filling the air with anticipation, “team D as villains, and team A as heroes!”

He briefly wondered who were on the opposing team, but the small telltale explosions that constantly put him on edge—it is not Oyakata-sama’s family exploding, keep control of yourself—was all he needed to hear to know at least one of the persons they’d be paired up against. Hopefully, Bakugou would restrain himself from acting brashly.

“This scenario has the villains be in the building first and then, after five minutes, the heroes will be let in as well! Everyone else can observe what happens over the course of the activity through surveillance cameras. This activity will allow Bakugou-shounen and Iida-shounen to get inside the heads of villainkind! And do not forget, this is a practical exercise, so go all out without fear of injury! Though… naturally we’ll cut it short if things get out of hand…”

“It may just be a training exercise, but it still pains me to be a villain; though I suppose I just need to defend this thing…” four eyes droned on, a shitty monologue for an even shittier attempt at budget villainy the smarty pants would put on. Katsuki couldn’t give a rats ass about that though, not when Deku was a more pressing matter.

And so, against himself, he asked the goody-two-shoes as he stood on the door, “yo, so Deku’s gotten himself a quirk after all, right?”

“Huh? You saw it for yourself, didn’t you? That herculean strength? He claimed his speed stemmed from something apart from it but…” the nerd ass punk began, slowing down towards the end before deadpanning, “you’ll just charge right at Midoriya-kun anyway, won’t you?”

Katsuki only grinned in pure white rage, wide eyes and manic expression as his hands popped with small explosions. Were you fooling me all this time? “You fucking monk!” he yelled, full of vitriol and hatred.

“Bakugou-kun! I understand that we require to instill ourselves into the roles of villains but that language is still completely inappropriate during school hours!” Glasses chastised, swinging his arm in a 90-degree angle.

He felt a vein protrude from his forehead and he yelled back, completely fed up with all that self-righteous bullshit from both four eyes and Deku, “shut your tramp already fucknuts!” Smartypants gasped in a heavy offense, yelling something about the inappropriateness of that expression beyond the curse word. What a pussy. “I’ll go patrol and shit, you keep that thing safe while I go kick Deku’s ass.”

He stepped out of the room before there could be any complaints, marching down the hallways in complete silence; quiet enough that not even ears would be able to hear him. The empty concrete building was eerie and uncanny, but it allowed for perfectly useful echoes to bounce off the walls. Echo let him listen to what would have gone undetected otherwise, and echo would stun Deku more with his explosions.

A telltale clicking of heels came a few halls down, and Katsuki ran up to the noise, jumping up with his arm braced for impact to see pink cheeks’ white astronaut-like costume and Deku’s plain and boring green hair before blasting their asses off the exercise.

Chapter Text

In a blur of movement, Deku shot out of the way with pink cheeks right onto the other side of the hallway. Fast, maybe even faster than in the tests, even pink cheeks looked lost when he stopped.

Covered in smoke and debris, Katsuki seethed from his spot on the ground, “damn it Deku, don’t dodge me!”

“Namu amida butsu, you go find Iida-kun, Uraraka-san. I shall hold Bakugou-kun back,” Deku resolved calmly, without a trace of tears in his eyes as his hand went to his belt to get some wrapped up chains.

Pink cheeks ran off into the other hallways but he couldn’t give any less of a damn. She was loud and slow, so he would go after her once he beat Deku into the ground. “I’ll blow you away just short of getting this interrupted!” he threatened, lunging in for a right hook.

Deku immediately responded to his move, taking the chains with both hands and swinging one of them to have it wrap around his arm and redirect the blast off to the side. The hell? Did the shitstain just read him so clearly? Fuck off!

He tried to break away the chain with small explosions, careful not to blow his hand off, but the damn metal didn’t budge a bit. Deku swung the thing with Katsuki, changing his footing to move him around as if he weighed squat but with a split-second instinctual reaction he managed to free himself before Deku pulled him back in. “What the fuck was that all about, Deku?!” he raged, flexing his hands and widening his posture.

“You always begin with a right hook Bakugou,” Deku stated like it was something as obvious as the sky being blue. It wasn’t obvious! And if it was, it wasn’t supposed to be obvious to him. Fuck it, if it was like the sky being blue then he could know because others said that, but not what that entailed because Deku was blind.

He gritted his teeth and yelled, “fuck off Deku, how the hell would you even know?!”

«Bakugou-kun! Tell me what is happening over there! What is happening?» four eyes demanded over the intercoms. Tough shit for him though, Katsuki was in the middle of something.

“Shut up and keep guarding four eyes! I’m about to blow off some steam and don’t need you nagging in my ear,” he grunted, bringing his hand up to the device to hang up in the middle of that goody two shoes monologue. There was a standstill, with Deku swinging the clanking chains by both of his sides and Katsuki seething in front of him. Sooner than later Deku would do something, no doubt about that, so Katsuki had to act first.

He shot forward, burning explosions impulsing him forth as the momentum and heat threw him upwards. He threw a feint by pure muscle memory, small pops coming from his palm before he planned to use a large explosion to turn himself to the side and kick him, but the damn monk used the chains to throw him off his balance before that could even happen, slowing that crap down before the impact could break one of his bones from the momentum. “Come on Deku, show me that pretty quirk of yours that you’ve kept hidden for so long. For old times sake!”

There was a light click in one of his gauntlets, caused by the heat in the air from his explosions and the adrenaline in his body causing him to sweat, which was then stored in the grenade-looking support item. Deku heard it too, as he began swinging the rattling metal faster at his sides. Good, he ought to be afraid, he thought grimly. “You were one of the first people to know how my quirk worker when we were kids. My sweat in my palms is like nitroglycerin, remember? That’s what ignites the explosions,” Katsuki droned on, hand outstretched as he savored the moment. “Now, if the gauntlets are like I asked, then I can store my sweat in them like a biological bomb and when I pull the trigger…”

All Might’s voice boomed through his ear as his finger began to pull at the small, metallic pin, frantically yelling, «Bakugou-shounen, my boy, stop this! You’ll kill him!»

“If it doesn’t hit him he won’t die!” he grinned, and with a click all hell unleashed in a large explosion that shook every inch of the fake building. That was his true strength, his real power. That was what he could achieve when there were no limitations.

“He still did that?! That’s so unmanly!” Kirishima exclaimed, bringing a hand to brush back his rock-hard hair as he looked at a static camera from where the explosion had completely destroyed it.

“I get Bakugou’s in the villain team but that is plainly a murder attempt to Midoriya! Is he even alright?” Ashido mentioned, pointing at one of the still standing screens, grayed over by all the smoke and the crumbling building.

Toshinori kept quiet, even as he smiled it was forced in the way he pulled painfully at the edges to keep it in place. The microphone was still on his hand from where he had just chastised Bakugou, far too small in his trembling grasp.

“All Might…? Midoriya is going to be okay, right? It was just an exaggeration what you said, kero,” Asui asked, far more directly than anyone else as she voiced the doubt present in the minds of everyone else.

Because truth to be told, despite having witnessed Midoriya’s strength first-hand Toshinori had no idea if the boy would make it out unscathed, if at all. The hallway was narrow with nowhere to run, in such an occasion Toshinori’s plan of action mainly relied on taking out the villain before they could act, with his abdomen painfully reminding him of the only time he failed to do so.

“He’ll be fine,” Jirou stated calmly, an assured and confident expression on her face as she said so. “He was holding back for Bakugou just now.”

Izuku had been on edge even before Bakugou and Iida entered the building. Explosions were some powerful things, and while he could withstand the heat or dodge the blast it was the sound and rattling impact on his mind what made that a tough match against him. For years before, back when there was still no diagnosis and Bakugou was on friendly terms with him, he was still uncomfortable with the small popping blasts that came from his hands and the scorching heat they could reach.

Explosions had power, and Gyomei knew that better than most as he had waited outside the calculated blast zone, fully aware of what awaited the Oyakata-sama and half of his family. Not even Kibutsuji could dodge nor avoid an explosion of such drastic magnitude, with the sound of his cursed body mending itself back together painfully gritting against his ears because it was something better to focus on that the smell of charred flesh or the feeling of something brittle breaking under his foot with a snap as he ran towards the battle.

And since then, as much as the smallest pop made him flinch if he didn’t steel himself beforehand, and the larger explosions made him instinctively move and react with tears in his eyes and his pained hands searching for a weapon that wasn’t there. But now, it was there, hanging by his belt right at his side. Just chains at the moment, but thanks to Yushiro he could call for the weight of the axe and morningstar without those actually appearing or fully summon the entire might of his deadly weapon. Hopefully he would never need it, but anything could happen anytime so it was better to be safe than sorry.

“So we’re going to have to learn the entire layout of the building in five minutes,” Uraraka muttered under her breath, bringing closer to her face a sheet of paper. So that’s what it was. Well, he would manage without it; he always did.

“It is a small advantage over this situation, as I presume the opposing group will only know the layout from the few minutes they were allowed. Nevertheless, we cannot count too deeply on this,” Izuku proposed, folding his paper and storing it—well, more like cramming it—into one of the small pockets of his belt.

His classmate nodded resolutely with a small humph. Certainly a bright and cheerful girl, that attitude would prove to be useful in rough times for her and those around. “Right, I think I can sort of learn this but we’ll need a strategy of some sort. Anything in mind?”

Izuku took the chains from his belt and held them with both hands, the familiar weight coming back to the end of both sides as he beckoned it forward. He let the morningstar on the ground as he shifted his grasp on the weapon and he took the axe by the handle. “It’s like the thing you had at the entrance exam!” Uraraka exclaimed, her shrill voice loud and amazed.

“Indeed, I can get my kusarigama to vanish at the edges, and I have trained for several years prior with it as well. Besides that, I hold reason to believe that Bakugou-kun will ignore all attempts to strategize from Iida-kun’s part to come after me,” he affirmed, hoping that Uraraka wouldn’t ask if he could get the chains to vanish due to his quirk. There was only going to be so long until that became common knowledge, and he was unsure wether he dreaded more the moment when that happened or the same occurred with his blindness.

“Oh, that makes some sense. He was really angry with you yesterday for some reason during the softball throw…” she quietly mentioned, falling onto an awkward silence at the mention of that topic. “A- anyway, I won’t push on that topic anymore…! My quirk lets me cancel the gravity of anything or anyone I touch with all five of my fingers, but if it’s too heavy or it goes on for too long I get dizzy…”

Izuku nodded resolutely, muttering a prayer before confirming with her, “very well then, in that case we shall avoid using it until confrontation arises. Is there any place where you can imagine they placed the decoy? I presume Iida-kun would’ve been the one in charge of that, and from what I noticed yesterday the two of you are good friends.”

“Right! Well, I think that he probably hid it in one of the upper floors. Maybe the fourth one, if not the fifth,” she listed off, humming deeply in thought after that. Izuku agreed with that train of thought, so they used their little remaining time to continue studying the layout.

Sooner rather than later, All Might’s voice boomed in their ear from the earpiece, stating they had only 15 minutes and the timer started right that second. “Get on my back, I can get us onto the fourth floor to scout it out before heading to the fifth but I’ll need you to guide me; I can’t measure depth all that well.”

The girl shrieked in surprise but quickly hopped onto his back. “Are you sure you don’t want me to use my quirk on you?” she offered as she held her arms together by his chest. If he didn’t need his hands

Izuku shook his head, stating matter-of-factly, “there is no need for that. Now hold on carefully.” He jumped up high, with the chains rattling behind him as they painted a vague image in his mind of the building. Soon, they began to fall,

“Midoriya-kun, now!” Uraraka warned. He swung the axe over to the building and had it stuck on the concrete with a heavy cracking noise, then, he pulled himself closer and steeled himself for impact against the wall. The concrete was cool to the touch, uncannily smooth as he slid down onto an open window before sliding inside.

“Are you alright?” he confirmed, and the subtle nod of Uraraka as she got off was all the confirmation he required. “Good, then we need to move. Stay attentive, the echo in here can be used to our advantage and disadvantage.”

They began to move, slowly, as quietly as possible. Izuku was as silent as needed to be, with his chains hanging from his belt as Yushiro’s blood demon art concealed their sound and his sandals softly muting his already quiet steps. Uraraka was less quiet, with her heels clicking against the concrete on each step. There was another footsteps walking around their same floor as well; Bakugou’s, if he had to guess, with the way there was no metallic clanking together as Iida’s armor did and each step was more like a distant and barely muffled stomp.

Izuku raised his arm to get Uraraka’s attention as they continued on walking, pointing in the general direction Bakugou as he mouthed his name. Uraraka stopped on her tracks and likely mouthed something back, with a soft and shaky exhale. He couldn’t respond to that, but he could urge her to keep on moving. Bakugou’s perception of them likely relied on her footsteps, so the second she stopped the brash kid would know they noticed him and would change his strategy. It was better if he thought he had the upper hand, it would make him overconfident and less likely to think up a strategy.

Izuku took the lead from then on, moving slowly with the echo to guide him as every breath bounced off the walls. Technically he didn’t need to rely on that, with the small device on his left ear theoretically being able to analyze his surroundings and relay them to him, but he still wasn’t used to that and didn’t wish to rely too much on a technology that he could loose much more easily than he wished to admit. He moved closer to Bakugou, Uraraka close behind. Any moment now, he braced himself, listening to the footsteps pick up in speed and cross several hallways before jumping up into the air.

He took Uraraka and darted to the beginning of the hallway at the first spark that emerged from Bakugou’s hands. The smoke was thick, but he was no stranger to the way it clogged his throat worse than his tears. “Damn it Deku, don’t dodge me!” Bakugou yelled, full of uncontrolled rage reminiscent of Genya when Gyomei first met the boy. Truly saddening, but nothing patience and guidance from an authority figure couldn’t manage; hopefully someone at UA would be able to do that for him.

“Namu amida butsu, you go find Iida-kun, Uraraka-san. I shall hold Bakugou-kun back,” Izuku suggested, taking from his belt the kusarigama even if he still didn’t call forth as much as the weight from the edges. His teammate sputtered briefly, but still did as he asked given that he heard as she ran away, running away presumably to the direction Bakugou came from.

More popping explosions from Bakugou’s hands, quickly followed by overly aggressive threats, “I’ll blow you away just short of getting this interrupted!”

A right hook, Bakugou always begun with one. It was an easy counter, and while Izuku could capture him and finish the confrontation in that moment he also recognized that Bakugou needed to test his limits in a controlled environment to improve. In the end, who was better than him to take the—quite literal—blows after years of bearing through them?

His chains wrapped around Bakugou’s right arm, pulling it away so the explosion hit nothing but air. He still flinched at the sound, far too loud and aggressive for his liking. Bakugou jerked and tried to pull himself away, but he knew the nichirin wouldn’t budge even as the boy angrily released explosions at it. The chains rattled and shook as Bakugou fought against them due to his sudden action, throwing him off to a wall with largely controlled strength. Bakugou took a singular opening from the chains’ grasp and yelled, “what the fuck was that all about, Deku?!”

“You always begin with a right hook Bakugou,” he noted, vaguely turning his head to the boy's right side. Anyone could call it whatever they wished, but the truth was that after so long being used to combat Gyomei learned to read his opponent's moves quickly and predict the following moves.

Sadly, that didn’t seem to be the right thing to point out as Bakugou quite rudely alluded to his disability, “fuck off Deku, how the hell would you even know?!” First off, only he got to make jokes of that, Kyoka too with that shirt but that was it. And second of all, that was cruel, unnecessary, and auntie hadn’t raised him like that.

His deadpanned tired expression spoke that for him, but it seemed like Bakugou ignored that for a moment as he yelled to Iida through the earpieces they were given for the exercise.

Izuku swung the chains at his side, and Bakugou widened his posture. He would blast off from the distance to attack, or he decided—for some reason that was incredibly unlike him—to defend himself from whatever Izuku threw at him.

Bakugou shot forward, impulse by a powerful blast on up above. Izuku immediately noticed the feint, with small pops coming from his opponent’s left hand before a larger one came from his right to shot him back. His weight fell towards the front, so that meant a kick was incoming.

Izuku changed sides of his hold on the kusarigama to loose the momentum and hit Bakugou with it on the leg to throw off his balance. Bakugou fell back, heavily relying on his other side as he stood. He taunted him, a far too friendly and forced tone as he beckoned, “Come on Deku, show me that pretty quirk of yours that you’ve kept hidden for so long. For old times sake!”

Something in one of Bakugou’s arms clicked, a button, mechanism, something dangerous, without a doubt. Izuku began swinging the kusarigama at his sides faster, gaining momentum to be able to defend himself properly.

Explosions are dangerous, Gyomei thought, repeating in his mind what he had experienced first hand 14 years ago. Not even Kibutsuji could dodge nor avoid a well made explosion.

“You were one of the first people to know how my quirk worker when we were kids. My sweat in my palms is like nitroglycerin, remember? That’s what ignites the explosions,” Katsuki droned on dangerously, hand outstretched as he pointed at him. “Now, if the gauntlets are like I asked, then I can store my sweat in them like a biological bomb and when I pull the trigger…”

«Bakugou-shounen, my boy, stop this! You’ll kill him!» All Might’s voice rang out from the earpiece. Panic, clearly, but it was also heavy with authority. The number one hero was someone Bakugou admired deeply, surely he would listen before acting brashly.

But Bakugou only resolved further, “If it doesn’t hit him he won’t die!”

And fire broke out.

Loud, hot and sudden, the explosion took place. He couldn’t dodge, not when his mind only thought of a long past battle and his body reacted accordingly.

Stone breathing; third form: stone skin.

He turned and shifted the kusarigama from hand to hand, the invisible weight securing and pulling down the chains with familiar reactions to it. The air was scorching hot, burning his throat with dry smoke with each breath, but not as much as it was when he literally stood in flames. When the blast stopped, barely even 2 seconds later, he let the chains down without as much as a bated breath or an inch of exhaustion (the tears don’t count, those are normal). He took both sides with one hand to grab the capture tape from his belt and shot forward before Bakugou could react, effectively securing him out of the exercise. So much for giving him a chance to test his limits…

Bakugou sputtered angrily, but Izuku left him in place and quietly fumed, “namu amida butsu… that was enough Bakugou, some limits simply shouldn’t be tested with others.”

He walked away, praying as Bakugou threw insults and accusations his way. He truly hoped that his prayers would be answered and the boy would placate his temper before seriously injured someone; had it been anyone else in that exercise… it wouldn’t have turned out well.

The smoke cleared further than the lone figure standing between the ruined building, with thin rays of sunshine showing themselves from where there was no longer any wall. They shone softly, revealing a lone figure standing tall with might; still breathing, still fighting, still strong. The smoke cleared around him and only him, letting the camera catch his appearance after the carnage.

His unblemished and freckled skin was lightly covered in ash, as was his unruly green hair with the thin coating slowly falling off as it swayed with the breeze. He held his chains down and still to the ground but not in defeat nor in weakness, but rather strength, confidence that he could react in the moment without being prepared as his piercing white eyes stared straight ahead at his opponent through the thick smoke with impassive tears.

It looked like a scene from a hero origin movie, the kind that could only be scripted and executed in a studio with extreme care of the conditions to make sure everything was absolutely perfect. And yet, there he was: Midoriya Izuku. The boy was barely on his second day at UA and had actually made it out unscathed from a potentially deadly explosion; even heroes with years of experience under their belt had achieved less than that.

Jirou grinned and crossed her arms. “All that flamboyance,” she noted sharply, “it just came natural to him.”

Ochako was already getting nauseous, which really didn’t mean much given that she had just made herself weightless to try and get the nuke but Iida moved it at the last second to the other side of the room quite a few times. So yeah, she was tired, sweaty, definitely worried about the explosion that had just happened on the lower floor and most likely the last one standing of the hero team. If leaning on a wall two seconds away from collapsing onto her knees counted as standing.

Not that she didn’t trust Midoriya! He was strong, independent, analytical and quite frankly the most intimidating kid in the whole class with all that muscle, but that explosion even had All Might try and stop it… It just didn’t paint a good picture for him! That thing had the entire building shake and a good part of it to crack as well, so she couldn’t think of a way he made it out of that one!

«Namu amida butsu… Uraraka-san? Can you hear me?» Midoriya asked over the intercom with a surprisingly steady and level voice. «I just captured Bakugou-kun. If you could distract Iida-kun for me I’d be grateful, I’m already heading towards you.»

He was still in the exercise! Holy flip! Ochako didn’t respond to his message to avoid raising suspicions from Iida, but she practically let out a sigh of relief. Thank the gods she didn’t have to face Bakugou! He was actually scary, not just intimidating like Midoriya.

“Alas, the poor little hero is left alone! Now stop your struggles and let yourself be caught without resistance!” Iida professed, and that was well the last straw from how corny it was. She accidentally sputtered out in laughter, doubling over against the wall she leaned at. From the other side of the room she caught sight of Midoriya briefly, standing awkwardly as he, too, tried his best to hold back laughter. “Cease this irrationality this second if you choose to stand against me, hero!” Damn it, more corny movie lines! I am a weak woman Iida, don’t do this to me!

Ochako was about to say something, distract Iida further with a quip at his corny movie villain monologue, but just as she opened her mouth to do so Midoriya jumped straight at Iida with the capture tape as quiet as a mouse; something really shocking to see from a guy who was easily over the 2 meter mark and probably could out-flex All Might’s muscles if he tried.

And with that, All Might announced that the exercise was finally over. Ochako slumped to the ground, no longer seeing a need to try and stay standing when she barely could anymore. Iida was too stunned to speak, and his face under the helmet was probably very funny. Damn, now she wanted to take of his helmet to laugh at him but uuuugh, she felt like death had chewed her over and spat her out like cheap chili-flavored bubblegum.

From her place in the comfortable ground she could see Midoriya untie Iida, apologizing for the unexpected fright he gave him even though it really just was part of the battle trial and not his fault. After that, he walked close to her and helped her up, letting himself be used as a crutch. “Thank you for holding out Uraraka-san, I deeply apologize about causing you to overuse your quirk to such an extent,” Midoriya sobbed, and it didn’t take a person with an empathy quirk to know he really meant every word he said in that moment.

So Ochako smiled weakly and assured, “don’t worry about it! Thanks to you it wasn’t worse either.”

Midoriya awkwardly nodded and turned away from her, repeating another prayer to himself ever so quietly. Ochako was had noticed he prayed a lot, almost as much as he cried actually. The amount of times she had seen his white eyes to be free of tears were less than the amount of instant noodle cups she could afford with her personal savings.

“Iida-kun,” Midoriya called out softly, looking at their armored classmate. “I wish I didn’t have to ask you this, but could you go free Bakugou-kun from his restraints? If i were to go it is likely that he would act… rather brashly, and Uraraka-san doesn’t seem to be in the best condition.” Fair enough, she felt like death.

Iida nodded and resolved, chopping his arm in an exaggeratedly stiff manner, “of course Midoriya-kun! Do not worry about this, as your classmate it is also my responsibility to aid you in any way I can!”

Aaaaand Midoriya started crying again. He really was a big softie, huh? How could she ever fins him intimidating?! With each passing moment he looked more like one of those TV character tropes of the gentle giant who’d cry if they stepped on a flower.

It was unanimously decided that Izuku was the MVP of the match, with a solid strategy, combat, precautions and the ability to have pushed through the worst of the odds. Iida and Uraraka also received good feedback, mostly about their battle and adherence to a strategy although they were nitpicked at a few weaknesses. Bakugou, however, was sent to the principal’s office for his behavior. Again. It did not bode well for him at all, especially considering the likelihood of having received an ultimatum the previous day due to his brash actions. That had all happened right outside of the building from the trial, so it was only All Might who greeted them and told them that.

Of course then, when they all returned to the camera room to continue with the exercise (with a singular, fuming exception to the rule) Izuku was met with an abundance of his classmates the moment he walked past that door.

“Oh hey Midoriya! Nice job back there!” a classmate immediately greeted him, quite loudly in his opinion, but also bright, cheerful and youthful. “I couldn’t hear what you were saying but that was some heated stand-off man!”

“You blocked that thing like a champ! I felt like I was watching a hero origin movie!” an upbeat girl added with a squeal, pumping up a fist into the air.

“That match was so intense, I’m all riled up!” another boy exclaimed, taller than the other one though still not as much as Izuku.

The presentations and names overlapped themselves, more and more voices joining in, each louder than the last until his hearing was so overloaded that he could barely place where anyone was to the point Izuku hesitated to take as much as a single step. It was deafening, intense, disorienting; he wasn’t used to it. He instinctively clasped his hands together, half expecting the familiar and calming weight of the cold and smooth glass juzu beads he had. They weren’t there, and the rough callouses on his palms were uncomfortable together.

Someone held his hand and pulled him away. Back into the outside and calm where he could actually focus his senses into his surroundings. He heard Kyoka close to him, though she gave him his space. He wasn’t one to normally cuss but shit, it had been so long since he had last let his senses be lost like that.

“Hey… you alright man? You didn’t seem like yourself,” Izuku managed to make out from Kyoka’s words, going back to think what she said after it had completely passed his focus just before. He couldn’t just let himself not fully register the sounds around him, it was just plainly wrong for him to do. Maybe if he just tried a little bit harder… he couldn’t afford those moments of sudden and uncontrolled weakness, not when lives could be at stake.

He needed to calm down, to breathe and focus on his surroundings. The only thing he could muster out if his throat as a response were the same prayers to Amithabha Buddha that came as a second nature to him, calming, repetitive and comforting. He nodded hesitantly, and focused his attention on what mattered; on his breathing as he kept up total concentration, Kyoka’s quiet presence as she was there for him without needing to say something, calming wind as it whooshed past them and blew his tears off his face, quieting chatter from the inside of the room.

“I get it, it was really loud and unflamboyant in there. Good hearing really sucks at times,” she complained, leaning back against the wall of the room they were at. He noticed her movement with precision, that was good, he was focusing on things better again. Izuku nodded again, repeating the prayer again. It was improvement, agonizingly slow, but it was something. “Don’t sweat it big guy, it happens to the best of us.”

At one point some of their classmates exited to do their exercise, but none of them said anything about him. He didn’t know if he was grateful or ashamed, perhaps both. Still, Kyoka maintained an amicable one sided conversation with him, never pushing for answers as she talked about anything and everything while they both sat against the wall. Slowly, he felt himself be calmer and more in control of his thoughts and emotions, capable enough to express his gratitude aloud, “thank you Kyoka-chan, for always being here for me.”

She huffed, “it’s nothing, don’t worry about it Himejima-san.”

He froze, turning to her wide eyed. “How do you…?”

“I THOUGHT YOU KNEW?!”

Chapter Text

Gyomei secured her by the arms, right where she had thick metallic armbands in place, and asked a little too much alarm in his tone, “knew what? Kyoka-chan, how do you know that?”

“Fuuuuuuuck, I was so sure! We’ve known each other for, what, twelve years? Heck, it was more than that. I thought it was just me!” Kyoka rambled on, saying anything except the answer to his question.

“Listen, I need a concrete answer before all of this. How do you know?”

She took a deep breath, her hands together and right in front of her face as she did so. “The joke I did yesterday,” she noted, “it wasn’t a joke.”

That joke… a 67 year old man with a life of tragedy, adding that to the fact that she (he? they? neither? both?) knew about his past life… Someone he knew, maybe? It couldn’t have been that she knew that he was a vigilante and that was it if she mentioned the not-a-joke about reincarnation then it was more than likely that he knew her previous life. Practically everyone he knew died young save for… “Uzui?” he all but exclaimed, a doubtful smile beginning to show on his face. “Namu amida butsu, how unbelievable.”

“Twelve years. It took us twelve unflamboyant years to notice,” the ex-sound hashira wheezed, and Gyomei couldn’t help burst laughing either. The situation changed from incredibly tense to ridiculously absurd with just one comment, and Gyomei had practically forgotten why they even even gone outside from the class in that moment. “How didn’t we notice before? What normal toddler even cries in silence?”

“And what child would have in their daily vocabulary the word “flamboyant”?” he asked back, doubling over himself with joyous tears falling freely from his eyes. That was the kind of talks he had had with his old coworker that he couldn’t before, with the fear of loosing someone else looming over their heads. But now? Hundreds of years after their deaths they could hold a normal life, have friends, get close and have no fear that they could see each other for the last time every time they exchanged greetings. “For how long have you known?”

“Honestly?” Uzui admitted, trembling voice as they tried to stay somewhat serious, “for twenty minutes,probably less.”

That sent them both worse into their laughter, and Gyomei had to help Uzui before they choked on their saliva. “I only noticed with your uniform, it’s identical to the one before!” they added, closing their fist and bringing it down quickly to their knee.

“We could’ve saved ourselves several years if I had shown you the drawing I made that time just once, how small can the world be?” Gyomei sighed, just as they were both finally calming down. He couldn’t think of the last time he had laughed that much, easily over the 20 year mark, probably closer to 25 than anything. Wow, that was a depressing thought to have.

“Well you nailed it down to the very hue of the color, let me tell you. It’s flamboyant!” they pumped up, and he could practically hear the proud grin. “By the way, you can call me Tengen if you want, but, like, in private. It’d be weird to explain in public.”

He nodded and offered, “namu amida butsu, in that case you can call me by my first name as well, in a similar manner as you proposed. Although… I do hold a doubt that I hope is not offensive in any way.”

“Shoot me with what you’ve got big guy, can’t be something I haven’t thought about before.”

“Should I refer to you as a man or a woman now? Considering, well, both situations,” he voiced, immediately regretting it the second he finished the question. Why did he have to have worded it so oddly?

“Yes.”

“Namu?”

“I mean, it sort of depends on the situation, I guess? The best way to explain it would be like, something happens that reminds me of before so I feel more like I did back then, but if that isn’t happening I just feel… different? In a way? Then there’s an odd middle ground somewhere in there. The only constant in this mess is my flamboyance big guy, at this point I’m not sure and don’t care at all,” Tengen explained, going into much more detail than a simple “yes” to a question where that didn’t make any sense.

And it wasn’t something Gyomei particularly understood all that well, but he still knew that it was normal to a degree and that there were several people who had similarly complex feelings about gender but it didn’t make it wrong. The way he thought about it was joyous, that there was enough peace in their world that people could worry wether or not they were a woman, a man or some middle ground of both. “Namu amida butsu, humanity is a truly complex thing. It is truly wonderful to be able to explore these topics freely in ways that would have been unthinkable of in the past,” he expressed sentimentally, sharing his thoughts on the matter despite his limited understanding. He didn’t need to understand everything to make it any less real or valid, for example, he never figured out how or why wisteria was harmful to demons but that didn’t change the fact it had that effect.

“Just say you don’t get it, there’s nothing wrong with that,” they joked, nudging him on the ribs. If he could roll his eyes he would’ve in that moment, but as the backup option he could manage he just did the accompanying head motion with a smile. “Ready to go back in? I want to see teenagers flamboyantly beat each other up.”

“Why have you decided to word it as such? I am certain there are much better ways to do that,” he fondly complained, getting up and stretching a hand to her. Tengen took it, so Gyomei helped him up to head to the door and walk inside.

It was much more quiet than before. Izuku preferred it that way by far, and much more so when his presence wasn’t something taboo that made all conversation to cease. This time his presence wasn’t recognized, at least not verbally. He was just someone else in the crowd, not more and not less.

“Oh hey, Ojiro’s match is about to begin, he’s with the invisible girl on his team. I wonder how flamboyant it’s gonna be,” Tengen mused.

Izuku blinked in surprise and asked, completely baffled by that new knowledge, “there’s an invisible girl in our class?”

“You know? I have the habit of telling you things but sometimes I unflamboyantly forget you can’t notice some others,” they deadpanned.

Izuku laughed quietly, and his mouth was beginning to hurt from how much he had done that for the last 5-ish minutes. “It’s not quite the same, but I forget at times that my perception of the world is not the only one, let alone the common one,” he admitted in a likewise manner, clasping his hands back together in the familiar position even though he wasn’t praying at the time.

“Speaking of that, I’ve turned off the flash of your phone more times than I can count. You’ve flashed me at the most unexpected times ever,” she complained, crossing her arms and shaking her head with a jingly sound from her bejeweled headband. Izuku promptly apologized, but he reassured him, “don’t worry about it, just some old man rambling habit that never left.”

Izuku was about to ask him why he said that so freely, but he then reminded himself that they had some freedom to reference their past life due to their simultaneously brilliant and stupid idea of mentioning the fact that they had one as a joke. It was relieving to know they didn’t have to keep it entirely under wraps, with plausible deniability and witnesses (calling Monoma, Kouda and Ojiro witnesses felt like they were admitting to a crime) to confirm they actually joked about it (and definitely not testify, why was that the first word he thought about???).

The door opened and All Might walked back inside heading to the front of the room where the cameras were—as far as Izuku knew—and announced, “you have fifteen minutes to achieve your respective objectives, now begin!”

It begun quiet, without much comments from anyone other than the brief mention that one of Ojiro’s opponents was a recommendation student. That likely meant that the trial would prove to be more challenging that what it would have otherwise been. If they had a good strategy they still had a chance of victory, but they were heading in with extremely limited knowledge so it would prove challenging.

Then, all of a sudden, various exclamations broke out and overlapped with each other. They were so very loud, but thankfully it wasn’t nearly as bad as before. He could pick up a few words from all the overlapping voices, mainly ice, building and destroyed. That didn’t paint a nice picture.

Tengen whistled, commenting to himself, “damn, that sure was flamboyant, he just froze the entire building within seconds and secured the opposing team to the ground!”

“That is certainly good control over his power, what is the likelihood he trained before coming here?” Izuku mused, turning to his friend with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh he definitely trained before coming here, the recommendation exam is for rich-rich kids or children of heroes last I checked—and that was yesterday if you wondered—so his parent taught him or some teacher did before he came here. Not to mention the ice was flamboyantly well controlled and he limited it to only freeze the feet of Ojiro-kun and that girl,” they noted, listing off smaller details to add to his point. It made sense, although Izuku did wish to have been able to be there to witness it in person; Izuku couldn’t make out anything from any TV normally, let alone the miserably low audio from those cameras. Although… well, there was no time like the present and he didn’t for ask the earpiece for nothing.

He brought his hand up to the earpiece and found a slight dent in it, pressing it lightly to hear a beep come from it. «Battery fully charged, awaiting orders.»

Tengen turned to him and questioned, “what’s that thing?”

“An earpiece, I asked for it to aid me in certain tasks that are complicated for me,” he explained kindly, vaguely pointing at his eyes to accentuate the point further. “But every day I still find myself getting increasingly more surprised at your hearing. Is there anything you can’t hear?”

“Aizawa’s heartbeat, without a doubt. Mice make more sound than that, you know?” Tengen exclaimed, making animated gestures with his hands and clapping before the word “mice” to accentuate it further.

Izuku hummed in thought, adding in his two cents to the conversation teasingly, even if his tone did not show that, “all mice or just your muscle mice? I do believe there is a large difference between those.”

“Oi! my muscle mice were the flamboyant epitome of all mice, in fact they were several times more discreet than the average– oh hey that icy boy is melting the ice,” he began, cutting herself off to point out what was going on on the screen.

“Interesting, I do wonder what his quirk is in that case,” Izuku mused, turning back to the screen.

«Chosen individual’s quirk allows creation of ice and warmth from their body with the current data received. Wait further for more evidence to provide a more detailed analysis.»

“Damn, that thing puts the bombs I asked for to shame,” Tengen observed, sighing in absolute defeat dramatically with a hand on top of his forehead.

Izuku turned off his earpiece and shook his head fondly. “Namu amida butsu, it is not a competition my friend– wait, what was that about bombs?” he asked, quite frankly worrying about what actually was the real question in that situation.

“Yeah, but only smoke and flash bombs, not anything unflamboyantly dangerous,” Tengen waved his worries off, or so they attempted since he still was not convinced. “You don’t trust me at all do you? I feel betrayed,” they deadpanned.

“I find you to be perfectly capable of somehow throwing a smoke bomb into somebody’s nose without any issue, the trust was never there,” he sassed back, pointing at them with his hands together. “You boasted of a similar event once, I am certain my lack of faith is not misplaced.”

“Charming, and it actually was an accident,” they confessed, crossing their arms and huffing in the opposite direction. Izuku smiled and patted their head reassuringly as he was accustomed to. “Hey, I’m older than you stop that!” Tengen laughed, attempting to take away Gyomei’s hand from his head.

“I was born before you, that won’t work,” he teased, still patting his head for the joke and nothing else.

Izuku arrived home with his hair still coated in ash and dust, given that despite his best attempts to dust it off it still clung deep into his scalp uncomfortably. His cane (which he only used in the apartment building to stop worrying his mom) was under his arm as he fiddled with the key in his hand for a minute until he managed to unlock the door with a click. It creaked open slowly, and he walked inside with that. “I’m home,” he called out into the quiet, walking in silently and closing the door behind him before Nibbles could run away into the hallway. Again.

The cat ran across the entire apartment only to end up bumping into the door with a loud thud and a sharp meow. It wasn’t hard to know of the critical stare she was giving him, but it sure was easy to act like he didn’t know of it, even when he felt horrible about that in reality. Oh who was he kidding, he dropped to the ground and apologized several times through his tears as he coddled the smug and bratty feline. He was a pathetically weak man when it came to cats.

“Namu… poor baby,” he sniffled, carrying the old cat close to him against her will. To bad for her though, she was getting pampered and head scritches, even if she didn’t want to. True to her name though, she began biting at his finger with her little teeth. Damn it, that was too much cuteness for him to handle!

All right, no, it was sadly enough time spent coddling the cat. He needed to focus and do what he needed to do before falling weak to the most precious kind of animal on the planet. So, with great willpower, he let Nibbles free back on the ground, picked back up his cane and stuffed it into his schoolbag and went to check up on his mom’s room.

Izuku walked past the living room, running his hand over the soft plush of the couch and then went to her room. The door was closed, muffling the quiet sounds from the other side to an indistinguishable point. He opened the door just a smudge to listen better what was happening inside, hearing the quiet snoring of his mom from her desk with the overheating computer whirring in front of her.

He pinned his eyebrows together sadly in worry and walked in to close the computer before it overheated any worse and moved it further from her. His hand hovered over her in uncertainty, but he decided against waking her up and instead went back into the living room to take one of the blankets they used throughout the winter.

Those were stored in a basket under the TV with the desperate hopes that the basket would last through Nibbles’ horribly ferocious attacks more than three years. The fabric was soft and cushioned under his touch, and he recognized it as the blanket his dad had last gifted his mom; her favorite. After wiping his tears away, he took the blanket and extended it before going to drape it over his mom’s shoulders and closing the door behind him with a quiet click. It broke his heart how much she had to work to put food on the table for them, he truly wished she took his offers for help. It wasn’t cruel in any way to take his money when he was quite literally offering it, but despite all of his attempts she still refused.

He sighed and went to his room to take a shower and finally get rid of all the dust clinging to him, leaving his schoolbag next to his desk on the way. After a few minutes he walked out, with his wet hair clinging to his forehead and the back of his neck and a much more comfortable pair of pajamas now that he was working on it; the UA uniform was too much of a tight fit on him, and he sadly couldn’t roll up the sleeves on that one.

There wasn’t any homework for the day, save for reflecting on ways to improve in combat before the next day, so Izuku took out his laptop off the bag and let it charge for the night before going out of his room again. He probably should be doing something while his mom was still sleeping to pass the time… well, tea wasn’t that hard to make.

Making his way to the kitchen, he couldn’t help but think of the events of the day. Looking back on it, he was astonishingly oblivious to the clear-as-day signs about Uzui’s identity for an impressively long amount of time. It’s all thankfully turned out well, he thought as he took out the kettle from the cabinet. I am truly glad. It worried me for a moment that our friendship would grow strained but it seems to have done the opposite now that we are both fully open with ourselves.

He filled the kettle with water and took a few moments running his hand against the wall until he found the electrical outlet to plug it in. With that out of the way, he scavenged through the cupboards to find some tea. It had to be there, somewhere, mocking him as he took out boxes with stuff that wasn’t tea and sneezed time and time again when he accidentally opened the spice cabinet and promptly lost his sense of smell for a few minutes.

It wasn’t a fun experience, at all.

So, while he recovered one of his four senses, he went to his room to take his phone to use the image recognition function of it to make his search easier. Technology was a truly wonderful aid for him, even if at times he forgot it existed and tried to do things the hard way. He ran through the boxes again; cookies, crackers, popcorn, cereal, everything save for tea.

After plenty of struggle spanning over the course of several minutes, the door to his mom’s room opened and she walked outside. “Izuku, dear, what are you doing in the kitchen?” her soft voice called out.

Izuku turned around with his phone in one hand and the box of crackers in the other as he was about to put it back in place. “Namu… I was attempting to make you some tea before you woke up, but I could not find the box for it anywhere,” he confessed, turning down to the ground in face of his miserable failure.

“Oh honey, I keep the tea in a bag,” she explained softly, walking up next to him and stepping up a stool to help him place the things he took out from the pantry back in place. Izuku stood wide eyes in place and whispered a quiet and surprised “oh!” in his shame. “I’m sorry for falling asleep Izuku, but how was school today?”

“It was nice, morning classes went as usual and we had heroics in the afternoon,” he shared, kneeling down to take a pair of cups from the cabinet and placing them on the counter. He took the metallic kettle and poured down some steamy hot water on them to let his mom add the tea.

She took a bag from the pantry and put it down with a quiet thud, taking a pair of spoons from the drawer and stirring the herbs into the water. “Oh! That’s nice honey… you weren’t injured or anything, right?” she fretted over him, evidently worried despite trying to hide it. She was a great parent, and Izuku loved her wholeheartedly but despite her best attempts at taking care of him, she still had old prejudices instilled into her. Thoughts passed down from generation to generation that those without quirks or sight couldn’t take care of themselves, defend themselves, or simply were weak. He knew she tried, he could see—or, well, notice—that she did her best to be supportive of him, but he also knew how afraid she was that one day he’d get hurt in a battle.

But he knew he would be alright, he had to be, to help as many people as possible live full and happy lives he could give away his. He was no longer a weapon with a heart and tears, only breathing for the battle he so rued and gave him purpose, but a person who could help other when nobody else would, when nothing else would. He was a person who carried the weapon he was, with faults and chipped edges alike, to give an ounce of hope that things would get better, that things would not end so soon and so violently. Gyomei’s greatest fault as the stone hashira was that his missions was that he could never save everyone, in every mission, with every squawk of his crow he arrived too late. Blood spilled and iron in the air, he came across victims, injured, orphans, widows, corpses and sorrow. This time, he resolved that he would protect as many people as he could.

“There was nothing of worry mom, the worst that happened was that one of Bakugou-kun’s explosions got too close to me and I had to wash off the ashes when I got back. Everything went fine,” he promised her, placing one of his hands over hers and the other over the emptier cup with a reassuring smile despite his watery eyes. “I can take care of myself. You already have enough on your plate without having to worry so much about me.”

She audibly sighed and placed her other hand over his. “You know I can’t do that Izuku, you’re my son and… after what happened to your father I don’t know if I could bear to loose you as well.”

It had already been well over 9 years since his dad had died, or at the very least vanished without a trace. The wound was already old but any mention of him was like picking at the scab of the injury. Izuku nodded in understanding, but he resolved even further, “that is why I have to do this, I cannot bear the thought that families would have to live on with empty seats at the dinner table and buying flowers for those who still have so much to live for.”

“I know Izuku, but you have so much more to live for as well…”

“That’s right, but I can choose to live for others.”

His mom sniffled and cried, “what did I do to deserve such a selfless son?”

Selfless, because it was also another, much kinder, word to say self sacrificial. And it was true, because deep down he had never been able to completely get rid of the part of him that was certain that his value came from sacrifice.

Monster
Tengen, I was wondering if you could revise the photo I took for the new album. Just to make sure it is alright.

Templechildren.png

FlamboyanceReborn
Gyomei what the cinnamon toast crunch fuck are you doing messaging me on here when we have our actual numbers???

Monster
Well, in here we have already talked about my nighttime escapades, so it is better to talk about things relating to that through this chat to avoid any interference of any sort.

FlamboyanceReborn
yeah that makes sense
let me check the thing

Monster
Thank you my friend, I am glad to be able to rely on you.

FlamboyanceReborn
no problem big guy :)
for the last message the thing at the end is a smiley face btw
also the image is nice, a bit blurry but it is easy to see either way

Monster
Hahaha, thank you then.
Imagine a smiling face here as well.

EndeavwhoreHater1
For those of you who have bet on my suffering: congratulations, you win this time fuckers. Those stupid ass lullabies hit right in my daddy issues and quirkist upbringing.

EndeavwhoreHater
lmao pussy (I say with similar daddy issues)

EndeavwhoreHater1
CAN’T YOU LEAVE ME AN ORIGINAL THOUGHT YOU YOUNG GEEZER?!

EndeavwhoreHater
Yeah I can, I left you the wuirkist upbringing

EndeavwhoreHater1
quirkist*

EndeavwhoreHater
kindly fuck off and die <3

DesperationInNegation
I had good reason to fear for my future, I will never be the same again

YourLocalHomo
I’m still surprised the og noose guy isn’t actually dead, I just got reminded when I saw this weird ust-filled fight with the other guy who shares his user

Queerios
Fandom so close knit all the ogs know each other fr

ABCDFuckYouThen
fr like you’re the pre-quirk era tumblr humor guy, right?

Queerios
So this is my legacy, I can’t say I disapprove

BringBackGoodAnimation
In honor of last album’s @SpeedyGonzales bashing, I am bringing it back by explaining how Monster keeps getting more woke and overanalysing every single damn thing in there:

MOTHER FUCKING “VILLAINOUS” AND MUTANT QUIRKS.

THOSE KIDS WERE FAILED BY SOCIETY BECAUSE OF THEIR QUIRKS, AND THE ADULT THAT PROTECTED THEM WAS THE BLIND KID FROM THE FAMILY ALBUM AND THE MYSTERIOUS SINGER IN HASHIRA!!!!

All these albums are about the life of that kid and it is him purposefully removing himself from the narrative. Like, in a modern context it is pretty obvious that he symbolizes quirklessness and then the kids, rejected by society, have some form of villainous or mutant quirks as well and he—knowing that nobody else would help them from experience—takes them in but they still get hate crimed in the end.

And I did my research for this; did you know that 7 out of 9 kids with either of those kinds of quirks die before reaching 14? And did you know that of that last amount half of them become villains to survive? TWO KIDS SURVIVED IN THE ALBUM, Kaigaku took the “villany” path by selling the others out to an actual villain—the demon—and Sayo survived and then met her caretaker again as he was dying. She didn’t mean her words that way, but everyone was already suspicious of this guy so they fucking locked him up without a care

And then I feel like the kakushi are supposed to represent the police or sidekicks, idk but the backbone of society basically, and the statistics do show that out of those numbers remaining with “undesirable” quirks, the 70% take some job in law enforcement to make sure things are fair, to stop the prejudice and the likes from happening, but that barely ever happens since most of them still face discrimination on the field or go underground

In conclusion fuck quirkists, protect kids, make things fucking fair to live in as a society or i will kick you in the nuts <3

SpeedyGonzales
fucking snowflake cant take jokes istg

Monsterunderthebed
take your red pill nonsense to somewhere else dude, this is tumblr for fucks sake

Dailyrics
Today's song is Sayo, by Monster

A monster, monster I cry
but the words they take, they are lies
take him away from my grasp
bloody hands tied by rope away, far too far.

lalalandingfacefirst
Yes, but I offer the part following the musical bridge:

«Oh, It’s you… If only… tomorrow had come…»

Its not even sung its just heartbreaking because of that damn chorus in the background.

The store was full, lined to the brim with narrow aisles with some colorful variation of a toy she didn't want. A man whose name was never said in her presence held her thin and bony hand so she wouldn’t escape, but she already knew well enough that is she tried it went worse for her, so there was no need for her to bother.

“Come on Eri-chan, boss wants you to have a new toy since you behaved so well these last few months!” the man tried to hype her up, but she didn’t want a toy or anything that the migraine-inducing establishment had to offer. She didn’t deserve it even if she wanted it, not when her existance was so cursed that not once, but twice had it led to Gyomei’s death.

Being reborn only seemed good for the first few moments, when she opened her eyes and saw the face of her father in her second life be Gyomei’s, with his voice and softness in his actions. She broke into tears after her bloody death on the battlefield, the stray bullet that lodged itself into the side of her head in the encampment, because in her mind that had absolved her of her unintentional evil and given her a second chance to make things right.

But that wasn’t so, as he disappeared into a puddle of blood and stained clothes from what she later learned was her fault. Her illness. Her own actions.

The Shie Hassakai took her in then, since no parent would want such an evil being with them. They were purposefully cruel, the Yakuza, but she couldn’t do anything to stop them with her far too young and cursed body. She kept hidden when she learned to walk, with only the darkness and privacy of night when a guard was outside of her windowless room to do so before her first escape and she learned the bad way what Overhaul’s illness could do.

Tear her apart, tissue by tissue and cell by cell. Death for a moment and then there was life again. It was horrible, and she couldn’t bear the thought of that happening again.

But she was told that her illness would cure all others, all those gruesome blood demon arts riddling humans all throughout the world. Few were the ones healthy, and every day it was less so she offered herself up to cure them all without there being a need to tell her, to ask her, to force her. Her existence had already doomed the same man twice, maybe she would actually cleanse her inherent and unwilling evil if she cured everyone from demonic abilities.

“Just… anything. It doesn’t matter,” she murmured, picking at the dry bandages wrapping around her pale arms. They itched, just done a day ago but already healed almost entirely because of her illness. Healed like a demon’s, because that’s what she really must have been: an unwilling demon in a human body.

The man sighed, pulling her hand away from the bloody and dirty wrappings. He told her softly, “of course it matters kid! You’re already doing so much for everyone, you deserve something for yourself too.”

She didn’t deserve anything good anymore, not until she absolved herself completely and went on to another life after curing everyone. Until that happened, she would survive, and then finally live a good, clean life without bringing ruin and tragedy.

Just to get back to helping people she grabbed a random, hot pink flower from the shelf in front of her. It was ugly, and she didn’t even know what it was supposed to do but whatever. They went to the cashier and bought it quickly, and then they got to a car to go back to the underground. She leaned against the window in the back seat, half hoping the sun shining through the glass would turn her into nothing but ashes and peace. A lullaby played on the radio, and she thoroughly ignored how the voice sounded guiltily like hers.

Shut up, I don’t need this crap right now. I’m fixing things now.

It went on for a few minutes until it quieted down into nothing but the instruments. That was much better, she didn’t need to cry from that, because that was a slippery slope to her illness going out of control.

But it wasn’t finished, as the car was entering the cover building’s garage the voice that she thought about when her guilt came up repeated his last words. The color faded from the cardboard box slowly, peeling itself off into nothingness as the cool golden light emerged from her horn without her control to first restore the seats of the car and then destroy them again as the man desperately called Overhaul and left the car in a sprint.

Her shock, guilt, sorrow, pain, was all broken apart as her body was torn painfully. She deserved it, she deserved it for causing his death twice.

Chapter Text

It was still early in the morning when Izuku got to UA. The sun was barely rising on the horizon, its first rays of warmth falling over his skin. There was an uncanny feeling in the air; paranoia, maybe, or a change of the tides.

The front gate was bustling with activity, with several men and women loudly asking questions as they definitely shouldn’t have been there. The entire entrance had to be blocked by them by just estimating the area they were taking up… to avoid them all he could think of was to jump over them (and hope for a good landing, far away from them preferably) but now that he thought about it there was a good likelihood that there was some sort of an arch over the main entrance, so no shot.

Izuku took a deep breath and steadied his bravery to push through the horrid crowd, holding tight to his schoolbag as he neared the gates. The men and women swarmed him immediately, asking question after question over question, overlapping all the noise horribly but hr thankfully managed to do something instead of freezing over himself. “I cannot… I cannot understand what you’re saying, apologies,” he stammered (better than nothing, he supposed), marching away before there was anything else they could say.

The reporters stayed behind, but Izuku could clearly listen when another poor unfortunate soul fell victim to them and was forced to answer some questions from them. He let go of his backpack and clasped his hands together, this time with his cold and smooth juzu beads between them after the... situation of the previous day. The hallways were empty on his way to the classroom, a few stray voices but not much activity besides that. Something moved in the vents, quiet, fast, and skittish. With more than half an hour on his side, he decided to check.

Twists and turns lined the way, as whoever or whatever scurried within the walls moved adeptly to avoid him for several hallways. Eventually, Izuku found himself bumping into a dead end with a frown. So much for nothing, he supposed, at least he did until a vent he hadn’t noticed in the wall opened and some—not human, but still intelligent—creature jumped out and queried, “am I a rat, dog or a bear? It doesn’t matter, I am the UA principal!”

And in all of his capabilities and social battery being tragically drained from 5 seconds of rapid-fire questions, Izuku’s first and only response to that was, “namu?” He wasn’t going to think too deeply into the implications of the UA principal being a rat-dog-bear-something, if it didn’t affect him in any way or anyone else it was nothing he needed to butt into (unless it was gossip, he never acted on it, he just needed to know.)

“That is the most anticlimactic I’ve ever gotten to doing this, how curious Midoriya-kun!” the principal mused. Izuku, however, focused on the part that it apparently was a normal occurrence for him to go in the vents and scurry around to the point he had received several reactions to it. “I always enjoy testing the alumni’s situational awareness in the first week of school, glad to know this isn’t one of the years I find myself disappointed! Normally the prize is a map of the vents but it would be quite hard for you to even enter… No matter! I’ll have them enlarged in a month or so for yourself. Pleasure finding you here, have a good day!”

What in the world just happened? Izuku wondered, standing agape in the dead end hallway as the principal jumped back into the ventilation system and scurried away. Was that a dream? Rare was the occasion when it was something other than a nightmare, but the few he had were quite nonsensical. He unclasped his hands to pinch himself in the arm, but it was certainly reality.

Izuku clasped his hands once more and rubbed them, rolling the juzu beads between his fingers slowly, and traced back his steps to head to the classroom. If his estimate was correct there were still nearly 20 minutes remaining before homeroom began, so he had plenty of time. Still, the habit of arriving early was always a good one to have, so he entered the mostly empty classroom and went to his seat in the furthermost row.

There was somebody else in the classroom, he could tell it was not Tengen from the breathing, but not who it was exactly, but out of courtesy he greeted them with a short, “good morning.”

The other person turned around quickly. “Oh, hello Midoriya-kun! How are you?” she exclaimed. Izuku could somewhat pinpoint the voice, it was from Ojiro’s partner for the battle trial with whom he arrived freezing. He recalled covering them with his happi for the remnant of the activity, although he hadn’t learned her name just yet. He’d wait for when their teacher took assistance for the day then, it wouldn’t take that long.

He pulled back his chair, the legs grating against the floor tiles in an annoying noise as he did so, and sat down. “I am quite alright, although it has proven to be an… interesting morning so far,” he admitted, recalling the commotion at the front door and the vents.

She nodded animatedly but sharply stopped herself mid action. “The reporters, right? It was such a fuss, but I managed to slip right by them; benefits of being invisible I suppose. They asked you some questions, right? About All Might?” she asked, taking her own seat as well and kicking her feet as she spoke.

Izuku hummed in agreement, “so that was what they wished to know, I couldn’t understand them over all the noise.” It was frustrating that due to excess noise he had almost lost his grip for the second time in two days, he really was on edge; or maybe he was on edge because of that, whatever the case, both were closely tied together.

“Wow, that sucks,” she empathetically winced. “Does it happen to you often?”

Izuku shook his head. “Not at all, but I have been feeling on edge for some reason. I believe it has to do with that in some way,” he explained, because it was true. It wasn’t often that sort of thing happened to him, but it wasn’t something that never did either. As both Izuku and Gyomei he’d had distasteful experiences with overloaded senses caused by some form of situation, he recalled that as a child—an actual child, back when it was his first time living—he’d gotten the similar reaction of standing stiff and shutting himself off from all stimuli other than the overbearing one when he had to wear a pair of distinctly uncomfortable socks. Not to mention that he still had moments in which he felt his knuckles hurt even though his current body had never suffered through the injuries that caused that pain in the first place, or the thick, warm blood from the demon coating them when he woke up in cold sweat from a nightmare.

They both stayed in silence as he thought about that. Izuku was crying, and the girl was no longer kicking her feet.

“Is that why you noticed me so fast?” she blurted out, cutting through the thick layer of quiet all of a sudden.

He furrowed his brow, placing down his juzu beads on the desk, and tentatively returned the question, “is there a particular reason you think that?”

“Oh! Well, I mean, because of my quirk most people barely notice me… I didn’t mean to be rude, I was just surprised!” she stammered out, waving her hands frantically in front of her face.

“Namu, you were not rude at all, I apologize if I ever gave that impression,” he apologized instead, further clarifying his case and… was he really going to go there? Well, too late, the words were already out of his mouth. “See, my eyesight is—to put it plainly—not good, so I have come to rely more on my hearing in various cases. I had barely noticed you were invisible until yesterday, although it is still quite the useful quirk for heroics.”

“Do you really think tha–” the door was struck open, interrupting her as their focus shifted onto whoever did that.

“Hello you unflamboyant drabs– wait, where’s the rest of ya? This isn’t flamboyant if I can’t spook all of you,” Tengen complained, standing by the door in complete disappointment. Still the same as ever, he thought fondly.

The invisible girl—he really needed to learn her name—commented tentatively, “because of the reporters outside?”

A beat, then two, and as the silence seemed like it would stretch indefinitely his friend finally said, “yeah, that checks out. I jumped over them to be honest, seemed like a real hassle to deal with so early in the morning.”

“Didn’t you call yourself the god of festivals for a time? Whatever caused the sudden change?” Izuku asked, not teasingly, just out of genuine curiosity. It was the largest change he’d noticed from them, mostly considering he used to be the most social of all the hashira he met, or at the very least a close second.

Tengen went to her seat and slumped her bag besides it, groaning dramatically and shutting him up, “don’t remind me, I’ve grown since then. A lot.” They turned to him with an accusing finger and threatened, “I am going to take you to the US exclusively to sue you for emotional damage by reminding me of that, by the way.”

“How kind,” he deadpanned, entirely unimpressed by the thought.

So, time passed, Kyoka half contemplated the idea of going back with the masses to pull away all the poor souls from being questioned down to the detail about an over-hyped blond with a can-do attitude and hella flamboyant strength. Sure, all that did deserve good attention, specially when the receiver in question was also the very image of peace for Japan, but the man was not some god to kiss the land he walked over either.

Just as she was about to do something for all of them, buzzing with anxious energy as something had them on edge, engine boy walked in, and then the french kid, the frog girl, and so on and so forth until every seat of the classroom was full. Every single seat was taken, or, well, at every seat save for one. Bakugou’s was empty, and with damn good reason after the unflamboyance he had shown the two days of school already spent there. They had wanted the brat to face consequences for years, and it was already about time somebody kicked him off his high horse. Womp womp and the works, the kid was ableist, quirkist, a literal abuser and if Kyoka had had a closer look at everything he did at Aldera she would have had a solid case against him.

But of course Gyomei had to feel bad. The big guy had an even bigger heart, enough to feel pity even for demons and, in this case, the little bastard he didn’t bother fighting against. And okay, sure they had it personal with him because of that but they had to make up for all the pity his main target had for him in some way!

Aizawa—the most drab man ever—walked into the classroom and immediately commanded silence by using his quirk. Kyoka didn’t know what it did, but that odd feeling of emptiness was a surefire way to throw someone off in the heat of a battle; and that was speaking from experience, the demon that had that blood demon art actually managed to make a decent gash on his arm while he was distracted, at the very least it was mercy to his dignity that it was the first demon with a blood demon art that he’d come across.

Forcing herself to focus, Kyoka could notice the heartbeat of someone standing outside the door. It was fast, the angry type of fast, not the scared one. At that point she was beginning to feel like Shinazugawa from how hard she was hating and hoping with everything in her that it wasn’t Bakugou who was outside of the classroom.

The hobo looking teacher stopped using his quirk and explained, “as I’m sure you’ve noticed, Bakugou will no longer be joining us in the classroom–”

“Was he expelled sensei?” someone interrupted.

“If you would have allowed me to finish,” the man grumbled in complete fairness, “I was about to say he was transferred to 1-B to avoid further situations as the ones that have occurred so far. In his place, Yoarashi Inasa will join the classroom.”

The door opened, and a tall kid (that still fell very short from Gyomei) with brown hair and a rough expression walked in, barely giving a curt greeting and sitting at the empty seat in front of Gyomei. There was something about him that struck Kyoka as odd, but she couldn’t figure out what it was yet. “What are you staring at?” he asked, crossing his arms and leaning back on the chair.

Well, no better time to do some tomfoolery than the present. “Oh, nothing really. Just wondering if your eyes are red from drugs or if you’re allergic to blinking,” she taunted, moving her eyebrows up and down for max pettiness. The poor kid hadn’t even done anything to her, she was just in the mood for being as annoying as possible without doing any actual harm.

To her surprise, the boy snickered, “says the girl who looks allergic to wearing clothes normally.” And he wasn’t wrong, she had the gray blazer draped over her shoulders, ripped leggins under the UA skirt and the tie was just a suggestion in her mind on top of that. “I like that, let’s see how well you can hold out when it matters.”

Black, floating hair and reddish-gold glowing eyes shut them right up. “Shut up, we need to get over homeroom notices now,” he groaned, “I’m sorry that I have to this to you, but…” the nervousness in the room was palpable, and Kouda fearfully murmured to himself if it was a pop quiz. Ah, nothing like middle school traumas on a bunch of children to give them legit nightmares. Kyoka didn’t have the best grades because in all fairness she didn’t care about those beyond getting into UA, and the school nightmares were only stories she overheard from classmates whose constant night terrors were not of man-eating monsters, survivors guilt, hearing two nuclear bombs ravage cities while on the other side of the country and murdering his own family once. In comparison, having a nightmare about failing an exam sounded like a blessed field trip.

“…you need to choose a class president.”

The kids started behaving like, well, kids and yelled over one another reasons for them to be elected. She rolled her eyes and covered her ears, glancing back to find Gyomei frowning and most likely contemplating about covering his ears as well. As she did that, she was also surprised to find the Yoarashi brat calmly leaning in his seat, not bothering to make himself noticeable or elected.

CLAP!!!

A fearful quiet overtook the classroom and all eyes turned to Gyomei as he leaned forward in his seat tearfully. “We must maintain order in some form, I kindly ask you compose yourselves and explain your reasons for your candidacy one by one, perhaps with some limitations established,” he implored, sending chills down the spines of the actual teenagers. Was that the legendary ear-shattering clap Tomioka and Shinazugawa reminisced of when he blew a firework to break a squabble between them? It was flamboyant! Even if their ears were still ringing… eh, it was completely worth it though.

Engine boy was the first to break from his stupor and proposed, “indeed! Being a class president is a laden responsibility where you must pull and carry everyone else’s weight! Just because you want to doesn’t mean you can! It is a holy office that requires the trust and esteem of those around you, and as such the only worthy leader will emerge from a vote by the people!”

“High-bottom,” Yoarashi disguised the backhanded comment as a cough, to which Gyomei sighed and shook his head to and Kyoka stifled a laugh.

A girl with flamboyant pink skin then pointed out, ruining the moment the boy had, “wouldn’t everyone vote for themselves then? It wouldn’t work!”

He stiffened up, and a boy with spiky red hair also pointed out, “and we barely even know each other, how can we have any trust in one another like this?”

The poor, self righteous and idealistic engine kid seemingly short-circuited before concluding, “and that is precisely the reason why those who do manage to gain multiple votes will truly be the most appropriate for the coveted position!”

“Or we can just prohibit people from voting for themselves,” she deadpanned, making the poor kid finally short-circuit. “If we write down both our name and the person we vote for, underlining theirs, we can have a flamboyantly just vote. Not to mention that Aizawa-sensei probably won’t care who voted for who or anything, so the privacy would also be kept unless we choose to talk about it.”

They turned to the teacher who was metamorphosed into an unflamboyant caterpillar with his raggedy old sleeping back. He opened his eyes and flatly expressed, “I couldn’t care less so long as you do it before the deadline.” Disappointing, but not surprising.

The votes were all written and counted for in the chalkboard, showing a strong first-place given to Gyomei with 13 votes and Yaoyorozu with 5 votes. A grgeat victory, all in all, and one that made sense. He was a natural leader, the unreachable point of strength, responsibility and will they all aspired to achieve. Heck, in all of Tengen’s life he couldn’t manage what Gyomei did in 27, less if they were going on technicalities of time training. Of course those kids would put him on a pedestal, and to be fair Kyoka also voted for him.

His awkwardness was barely noticeable as he stood in front of the classroom, standing tall and imposing even though they now knew that they way he rubbed his palms together was out of nervousness, and the light crease in his eyebrows showed some worry. He was insecure, and from how distanced everyone was from him in the corps it didn’t even pass through Tengen’s mind until the previous day that the mighty strong and capable stone pillar could be the awkward teenage boy with severe insecurities regarding his self perception.

Now that he’d figured out they were the same person, his perception of him changed drastically. Gyomei seemed much more… human; like he was less of an ideal and more of a person, which he was, but it was still somewhat hard to believe.

“Things really are heating up for Midoriya-kun! That’s so manly!”

“And Yaoyorozu’s live analysis of the fights yesterday was also very nice, kero.”

The poor boy who suggested the votes firstly was suffering with his loss of the election, clenching his fist painfully tight as he gripped his desk. Yeesh, that kid needed a chill pill, yoga retreat or something to calm down. He asked too much from himself.

Inasa took his seat at an empty table in the cafeteria. He hadn’t gotten close to anyone on 1-B in the last two days, so he didn’t bother. They were good kids, definitely much more calm than the lively group that was the 1-A disaster. He had been there for one morning—for whatever cruel being chose that form of torture for himself—and he was already exhausted from all that chaotic energy coursing from them.

The calmest kid was undoubtedly Midoriya. He was serious, straight to the point, and he partially voted for him because of the uncanny similarity in behavior he had to the stone hashira. That clap gave him flashbacks, Sanemi was sure of it. Damn strength quirks and all that, he was pretty sure that apart from the actual Himejima who was an adult going vigilante at nights and composer by day, he was the only one who could actually use total concentration breathing in that day and age.

To be fair that Jirou girl wasn’t bad company either, she was cheeky, poked at the sleeping bear and annoying to a great extent, but she also knew how to do it and when she should stop. She dressed like she was going to a weird, obscure band’s concert after class, even though she was wearing the uniform in all technicality, and considering his music taste it wasn’t that unlikely he’d be there too.

Speak of the devil and they shall arrive though (even if it wasn’t spoken and just thought about) Jirou dragged Midoriya—and if that wasn’t funny to see then nothing was, because if seeing a 150-ish centimeter short girl drag behind her a complete bodybuilder wasn’t hilarious then he gave up on comedy as a concept entirely—and sat down with her bento box before asking, “can we seat here? Yeah? Thanks.”

“I didn’t even answer,” he digressed, rolling his eyes halfheartedly.

She grinned cheekily and noted, “I didn’t hear a no.”

Midoriya sighed and apologized in her stead, placing a hand on her shoulder as he shook his head like a tired father, “namu, please do not take Kyoka-chan’s comments personally, she does respect boundaries if you require some space.”

“If she wants to play with pushing my buttons I can just push them back for her. Let’s see who lasts the longest,” he challenged, pointing his chopsticks at her before going back to eating. Everything had tasted better the last 2 days when he was in 1-B since he had heroics in the morning, but at least now he had some time to wake up fully before humiliating the snot-nosed brats and showing them the real value of diligence and effort rather than relying on their fancy pants schmuck quirks. If having powers was all it took to be strong then demons would have won all those years ago, dedication was key.

The girl grinned and flicked a piece of rice at his face. “Get humbled, and some eye drops while you’re at–”

An alarm blared throughout all of the cafeteria, causing Jirou to fall back from the chair in surprise and cover her ears in a similar reaction to Midoriya, although he only covered one. «Security level 3 has been breached. Students, please promptly evacuate.»

Inasa scowled, “the hell does level 3 even mean?” He’d had a bad feeling all day long, and he sure hoped that meant that someone just pulled the fire alarm as a stupid joke and it was not anything actually serious.

One of the older kids just ran past them to the bottleneck of the cafeteria entrance in a hurry, yelling his reply as he pushed his way through, “it means someone has infiltrated, this hasn’t happened in the three years I’ve been here!”

Mother fucking shit on a stick, I’m at the end of my rope.

Midoriya swiftly helped Jirou up and the three of them made their way to the absolute disaster that was the hallway. Students ran desperately and pushed each other to reach safety, first years were trampled upon as they hesitantly stopped to question where they were supposed to evacuate to, someone actually fell and was being stepped on. It was chaos, survival of the fittest except none of them were in that situation.

“The press?” Jirou exclaimed, something he could only hear because she practically yelled in his ear. “Was that what Iida-kun said or did I imagine it?”

Midoriya nodded as she kept him from falling too far behind, given that it was harder for him to squish his way through the crowd. “I heard it as well, but it doesn’t seem like anyone else did…”

“Then do that deafening clap you did in the morning or something, there’s a guy getting trampled up ahead and– fuck it. OI, GLASSES, I’M GONNA USE MY QUIRK TO SEND YOU TO THE FRONT SO YOU SAY WHAT YOU SAW!” he yelled over to the square whose face was getting smooched against the glass.

“WHAT?!”

“UP YOU GO SUPERSTAR, DON’T FUCK THIS UP!”

With a gale of wind he sent the kid up flying up into the air, quickly ushering him right on top of the exit sign. Damn it kid, you better do it! Inasa thought, gritting his teeth and clenching his fist as he also used his quirk to lift the poor kid being stepped on.

“EVERYBODY CALM DOWN! IT’S OKAY!” the kid yelled, breaking everyone into a stunned silence. Good. He took another breath of air and continued, “IT’S JUST THE PRESS, THERE’S NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT! YOU’RE AT UA, LET’S BEHAVE OURSELVES IN A MANNER OF THOSE ENROLLED AT THE HIGHEST ACADEMIA!”

That thankfully did it, with sighs of relief and more comments confirming it further from kids who were near the windows. Kid had spunk, but he definitely needed to loose up the goody-two-shoes vocabulary. Who the hell said “academia” in a normal sentence anyway?

“All right president, start us off,” Yaoyorozu kindly asked, stepping behind and giving him the podium.

Izuku nodded, murmuring a prayer tearfully and stepping up ahead. “Namu, let us initiate the ceremony for the new class president… but before that I’d like to say something.” He took in a deep breath, calming himself and ignoring the tears before continuing, “as flattering your election of myself to the position is, I do not believe myself to be capable of performing all the duties and carry the responsibility implied by this. I will be stepping down as class president and giving the position to Yaoyorozu-san as she took second place, and nominate for the position of vice-president Iida-kun. He proved himself to be capable of acting under pressure and acted as a voice of reason in a moment of desperation and fear, as such he figures to be the best option to step up amongst us all.”

He took an apologetic bow and took his seat as his classmates continuously praised Iida for his responsible actions and the girls cheered on Yaoyorozu for her ascent in position. It was much better in his mind if he wasn’t relied upon, not after what happened all the times previously when that happened. He failed the children, he failed the Oyakata-sama, he failed Tokito and Genya and lastly, Gyomei failed himself.

“Giving him the credit when I was the one who sent him up there? I didn’t think you’d be one to play favorites Midoriya,” Yoarashi teasingly complained, turning back from his seat to playfully nudge him with his elbow. From what he’d noticed Yoarashi wasn’t unlike Ryotaro in that way, quick to be annoyed and annoy back with jokes, requests that he already knew were set up for failure and backhanded comments without ill intent. At least he was already crying beforehand, so in theory it shouldn’t have been very noticeable that he was crying even more for something else.

He left his prayer beads on the desk and wiped his tears off slowly before explaining himself, “my deepest apologies Yoarashi-kun, I assumed that you didn’t wish for the position since you had not participated in the initial rush for votes after the announcement and allowed Iida-kun to take the spotlight.”

After a few moments Yoarashi reiterated in deep concern, “shit, dude I meant it as a joke, I’m sorry… I didn’t actually want to be class president or any of that.”

Izuku shook his head and reached out to pat Yoarashi’s head softly, almost instinctual with how much he was reminded of one of those children he couldn’t protect. I wonder if it was truly them who spoke to me as I died or if I hallucinated that. I hope…

“Pffft– you look like a pathetically wet cat,” Tengen laughed, standing from her seat to give the kid a pat in the back.

Well, hope could easily be one of the greater dangers present in such a situation. The likelihood of it occurring beyond Tengen and I is practically inexistent, I can not allow my mind to delve into that lest the truth hurts more.

“Great, now with that out of the way go back to your seats,” Aizawa tiredly asked. How much did he sleep? If he was an underground hero during nighttime and a teacher by day… well, Izuku couldn’t be thinking about that in all fairness, he also did vigilantism at night (although he’d slowed down with it after that time he almost went back to jail) and had school by day. The main difference between both of them was probably that Gyomei was extremely used to it and could barely even sleep as it was, meanwhile, Aizawa sounded like death and smelled like he drank caffeine instead of water.

With few complaints the classroom settled down and Aizawa continued on, “for the heroics class today it was decided you’ll be supervised by me, All Might—” did Izuku imagine the way Aizawa sounded more exhausted when he mentioned the hero? “—and somebody else.”

“Sensei, what’ll we be doing?” the boy who sat besides Izuku asked, raising his hand energetically.

“Be the hero everyone needs, be it a flood or any other disaster: you will be doing a rescue trial,” Aizawa wearily said, without as much as a hint of energy or enthusiasm. That amount of exhaustion was… certainly worrisome, to put it lightly. The class commented on how it sounded more serious and difficult, but after a few comments the underground hero commanded silence with his flat voice once more. “Do not get ahead of yourselves. As I was saying, this time it is entirely up to you wether or not you wear your hero costumes since some of them aren’t designed for this. The training area will be far away, so we’ll be getting there by bus. That’s all, go get prepared.”

Rescue… that was the thing Gyomei had never truly managed to accomplish. His missions always ended with the demon killed, but rarely ever before the demon could kill anyone. There were victims, people who had families and their own lives, almost every time he raised his kusarigama. Gyomei knew how to fight, but not how to save or protect. Where his strength and battle prowess were his best skills, his inability to save people was his greatest weakness despite being what he most strove to achieve.

He pushed back those thoughts to focus on the better side of the situation, now that he was just another student rather than a hashira everyone kept their distance from he could get suggestions, feedback and guidance to improve his weakness.

He stood up and ran his calloused fingers over the cool metal cases holding all the costumes, internally counting until he found his and took it off the shelf.

Inasa was the first to go change into his costume and walk out of the changing rooms. It was muscle memory to do it fast, before anything happened. He hadn't even done that the previous days, at least nit that quick, but there was that something in the air that had him on edge ever since the morning, and after lunch it just hot worse.

Dread pooled in his stomach uncomfortably, only growing with each step he took towards the bus. It was only the teacher and him so far, and the man only took a quick glance at his old demon slayer uniform before turning away with an unreadable expression.

Well fuck him too then, he couldn’t say anything when he wore an identical costume. But whatever, he had heard rumors of the 1-A teacher being an underground hero so it made sense he wore dark and inconspicuous clothing, similar to how the demon slayer uniforms were designed.

He turned around when he felt somebody walking up to him. But before he—the ex-wind hashira, who managed to go against the uppermoon 1 demon and fucking Kibutsuji Muzan in one same night—could react they pulled him away back into the main UA building.

“Hey, what are you doing– oh, no fucking way.”

Uzui and Himejima. Jirou and Midoriya were Uzui and Himejima. The uniform, mannerisms, everything checked out.

Himejima had a small smile as he cried and Uzui grinned, “flamboyant of you to join us Shinazugawa-san! It was a nice surprise.”

Chapter Text

“No. No way. I refuse to believe it. I already knew about you,” he pointed to Himejima, who pointed his gaze down without any form of denial, “but you cannot be Uzui, at all; I know for a fact the real Uzui wouldn’t throw away any kind of possible fame.”

Uzui grinned under his accusing finger before he (she? Whatever, that asshole,) appeared behind him and placed him on a headlock. “I missed you and your emotional constipation too, don’t worry!” they exclaimed, pulling him down to their height to give him a noogie of shame.

Sanemi groaned, throwing the assaulting limb away with a snap, “get off me you monkey! I miss 5 minutes ago when I still thought you were a girl with an attitude…”

Himejima quickly became his savior as he pulled away Uzui—the cruel being that he was—to give him some space. “Namu amida butsu, give him some space Tengen-san… all this is quite a lot to assimilate,” he commented, picking the annoyance up into the air in a show that Sanemi never thought he would see and would definitely pay a pretty penny to repeat.

He never thought that Himejima had it in him to give that amount of disrespect, if any at all, given how calm, responsible, stoic, and– oh, never mind, he just remembered about the time Himejima offered to exorcise him. He did have that in him.

“Wait, since when do you call each other by your first names?” Sanemi asked, crossing his arms and keeping quiet when a group of their classmates passed by to avoid explaining that mess of a topic. A girl with pink hair and skin turned back after her group passed to take a photo of Uzui, and then she finally left.

After the emotional damage was dealt, Himejima set down Uzui and clasped his hands together before admitting, “namu, it… depends quite a lot.”

“Depends on what?”

“On the question if you consider the time before we realized we knew each other back then or after, because there is an unflamboyantly large difference,” Uzui explained in much more detail, putting his hands together and pointing at him in question; still not answering Sanemi’s original question, but getting closer to it.

He groaned. Of course they found each other before UA if they were already close enough to go on a first name basis, but how? When? There was also a chance that Uzui decided to get in contact with Himejima by social media since the stone hashira had quite the presence in there, and they got closer without realizing who the other truly was until UA or some point closer to UA.

“Just tell me both already, we’re wasting enough time here and it will be your fault if the bus leaves without us,” he requested, leaning back against the solid concrete wall with a hand naturally landing on top of his katana.

Himejima took a deep breath, and Uzui was the one to explain, “so, we first and technically met 12-ish years ago as unflamboyant toddlers and hung out since then, and to hide everything we called each other by our first names since toddlers do that. Then Gyomei-san dropped his flamboyant songs out of the blue and we got into contact by twitter but we still didn’t put two and two together, and lastly yesterday we figured everything out for good!”

“…what?” Sanemi deadpanned.

Uzui nodded proudly, “yep! It was a flamboyant mess!”

“You almost sound proud of that…” Himejima sighed fondly with a shake of his head. Good lord, Uzui was well over his 80s now and Himejima was still leagues more mature. Someone should get that guy to a retirement home, he was practically senile! “Never mind, it would be best for us to head with the rest before long. We should keep this between ourselves, it would be hard to explain to anyone else.”

Uzui nudged him in the ribs and went up ahead, “yeah that and the fact that you are never in your house at night!”

Himejima groaned, muttering a prayer under his breath alongside what sounded like a complaint. He took a couple of steps forward before turning back, inviting Sanemi to walk with him. “You still have a doubt in your mind, don’t you?” Yeesh, how does he know? His intuition is freakish good. “It’s alright, ask without worry.”

Well, he didn’t mean to ask but now that it was his chance… “is Uzui-san a man or a woman then?”

Himejima turned around and stifled a laugh, barely concealing the gesture as he turned away and was very notoriously trembling with a hand over his mouth. Damn it, he should have kept quiet and suffered by himself! “I asked that question yesterday as well, from what I understood they don’t care about the way others refer to them but certain situations make him feel one way or another.”

“Just… how did he say it then? What were his actual words?”

““Yes”, that was what they said.”

“I’m only surprised it was not “flamboyant,” one would think that is their entire vocabulary.”

“Hey!” Uzui complained over by the group, “I heard that!”

“Womp womp! Too bad!” Inasa yelled back, reveling in sick joy at their overly dramatic expression of offense. At least he could finally let out his negative emotions much better without the guilty feeling telling him he was annoying a child or teenager as an adult.

Momo was the last to board the bus to make sure all 20 of her classmates had boarded first. Iida was at the front, brooding as his attempts to put order failed because the bus didn’t have a conventional design. Momo herself decided to seat closer to the back, that way they would both maintain order in the front and back of the bus to allow Aizawa to drive without any issues.

“Hey Midoriya-kun, no matter what I always say what’s on my mind,” Tsuyu said out of nowhere, startling Midoriya out of the conversation he was listening to.

Momo didn’t understand why Midoriya stepped down as class president, he was mature, strong, responsible and everyone looked up to him (in the metaphorical sense, she means, although in the literal it also applies) after he managed to walk out unscathed from Bakugou’s explosion as he showed off great quick thinking and reaction skills. He was everything Momo wasn’t but wanted to be, it just made sense for him to be a leader!

Midoriya nodded, a small gesture, and asked, “namu, what is on your mind then, Asui-san?”

“Call me Tsu.”

“Ah… alright?”

“Your quirk reminds me of All Might’s,” she blurted out, leaving her tongue out after dropping that bomb of a statement.

Midoriya hummed, placing his hands together thoughtfully. He always seemed to be on another degree of maturity from the rest of them, and it was sort of intimidating as well. He really was on a whole other level from the rest of the class, and that was said by Momo being a recommendation student. “Is that how it seems to you? I’m flattered, but I can not say I find much similarity.”

“Dude, are you kidding?” Kirishima interjected, turning around in his seat next to Shoji before continuing with an energetic fist bump, “the strength, the speed, the muscles. You’re basically All Might 2.0, it’s so manly! It makes me jealous, a simple enhancer type quirk like that lets you do a lot, and flashily too!”

Midoriya muttered something under his breath, quietly and hard to understand unless she happened to be next to him. “That is too much credit from your part Kirishima-kun. My quirk has nothing to do with enhancement as you put it, I simply have trained for years,” he explained.

Monoma gave a loud, fake laugh, stating, ““simply,” he says, and then that training is pushing boulders or standing over fire.” Boulders? Fire? Midoriya was terrifying, 100% percent. Momo was surprised he didn’t take the recommendation exam if he didn’t as much as blink at that.

“You still do that? Do you take any breaks at all?” Yoarashi exclaimed, furrowing his eyebrows in concern.

Jirou rolled her eyes, elbowing him to further prove her point or something of the sort. “It’s Izuku, we both know he doesn’t take a break even if he breaks a leg.”

“Your accusations offend me,” Midoriya frowned, rolling his eyes. Or she thinks he rolled his eyes, it was hard to tell when they were completely white.

“It’s not an accusation if it actually happened,” Yoarashi further clarified crossing his arms resolutely. He had done that? It seemed as Momo’s horror was collective, since the only ones who weren’t horrified were Jirou and Yoarashi, who were also terrifying in their own way from what she had seen of them.

Jirou was evidently close friends to Midoriya even before getting to UA, and she had absolutely destroyed the physical examination Aizawa had given them the first day alongside Midoriya. She was somehow faster than him, and definitely well trained with her weapons since she managed to cut through moving cannonballs without as much as breaking a sweat in All Might’s battle trial.

She didn’t know as much of Yoarashi as she did of Jirou, mainly given from how she had only seen him in the recommendation exam before that. But in that exam, he had left everyone in the dust during every test. He was fast, agile, strong, had swift reactions and also seemed to know Midoriya and Jirou from somewhere else, which was odd because in the morning it looked like they had only first met right then and there.

Yoarashi took one of Jirou’s swords—massive blades with an orange tint which were definitely heavy—from her back without asking, questioning, “where did you get these from?!”

“Yoarashi-kun! As an UA student it is unbecoming to use such a loud voice in a small area, much more so when your peers are close to you and there is no need to yell!” Iida yelled, resulting effectively ignored by Yoarashi.

“What, my swords? I got them from Yush–”

“I know who you got them from, but how did you get him to answer? He has blocked my number five times already and I’ve only messaged him thrice!” he complained, tossing back the sword without any basic precautions for handling sharp items.

Midoriya frowned and questioned, “namu, however did you manage that?”

“I. Don’t. Fucking. Know.”

Jirou wrapped her sword around in the bandages on her back, wheezing all the while with short attempts at saying something. And as Midoriya chastized Yoarashi for his language, Momo couldn’t help but look at the stark color of her classmate’s blade. It didn’t seem tinted in an artificial way but rather as if that was how the metal was supposed to look like naturally. She tried to think of how any kind of metal could be naturally a color that wasn’t gray, silver, copper-ish or gold. Even if copper was orange, or the color was closer to gold the sword looked like the color came from inside the metal, rather than an outside reflection, if that made sense to explain.

She also noticed that Yoarashi already had a sword himself; a katana, to be more specific. That was another sign that there was something that made that metal special to them, or special in general. It would be best for her to know its chemical composition then, if it was so important and rare that Yoarashi couldn’t get one made by UA’s top notch support specialists.

Finally, after several moments of deliberation and enough time for her classmates to pester the teacher to give them control of the bus playlist to play some… lullabies? she took courage to ask Yoarashi, “why are you so interested in the sword Yoarashi-kun? You already have one of your own.”

Yoarashi blinked as if he had forgotten she was there, and Jirou then spoke for him, “the metal is particularly flamboyant, the gist of it is that it basks under the sun for a very long time and by using a certain kind of technique the metal can change color.” She took out the blade again to show it to Momo closer to her. The metal was warm under her touch, practically irradiating heat on its own. She was right when she thought it looked like the color came from within the blade, it almost shone brighter when the sun hit it. Not to mention it was masterfully made, seemingly ancient too, judging by the worn-down handle. There was also an inscription on the lower part of the sheet, «destroyer of demons» it said.

It was interesting, complex, and now she really wanted to see if she could learn its composition to make it herself. “Do you mind if I take a closer look at it’s chemical composition after class? I could make it with my quirk if I do,” Momo confirmed, giving the blade back even though all she wanted to do at the moment was to make a microscope and study it closer.

“You could do that?” Midoriya asked, barely appearing surprised and more so interested at her quirk. “Namu amida butsu, that would be marvelous. Thank you, Yaoyorozu-san.”

Jirou nodded energetically and raved, “of course you can! That would be incredibly flamboyant Yaoyorozu-san!” She gave Momo a pair of thumbs up, grinning ear-to-ear.

Momo nodded, wiping the sweaty palms of her hands over her lap. For some reason it felt like a heavy responsibility was just entrusted to her, as she stayed under the gazes of those who were easily the three strongest students in their class; if not their grade. Oh boy she was really overthinking this real strong, she had to calm down, breathe, compose herself. She was a Yaoyorozu, she knew how to use her quirk well, the chemical components for dozens of items, how to create and work under pressure and the in the spur of the moment alongside various other skills. She was perfectly capable of creating a microscope with enough strength so she could see the chemical composition of the metal after class, although she might need something to eat first…

“Of course, I will do my best!”

Tenya stood tall as they entered the building, taking in with wonder all the installations UA had spared no expense to get. So far he could see what appeared to be an artificial lake, a fake city on fire, a crumbling mountain area, a landslide zone and a central plaza with a water fountain. The central area would most likely be the rendezvous point, for when they were spectating the performance of their peers or were about to leave the building.

The other hero accompanying them for class was No. 13, the space hero. A great and respectable hero who was mostly known for their marvelous rescue work in every and all occasion they’re needed. “Welcome students, to the practical training area I created for various rescue exercises: the Unforeseen Simulation Joint!” they exclaimed, proudly showcasing the establishment.

“It’s 13! Iida-kun look, it really is 13!” Uraraka gushed, taking his arm and shaking it excitedly.

“Yes Uraraka-san, I am aware. It is certainly an awe-inspiring occasion to be taught by an expert in the field of rescue how to do this as well as possible,” he confirmed, noting off the value of the experience for the future.

Uraraka continued shaking his arm, faster, practically vibrating in her place. Iida could almost see a bright light come from her energized smile as she jabbered, “I really like 13! Like a lot. They’re my favorite hero!”

Aizawa went with 13 and asked something in a hushed voice, receiving a reply from the rescue hero with 3 raised fingers to establish a point. Sadly, Tenya could not hear what the teachers were saying and even if he could it was not his place to intrude upon.

“Before we begin, I have one thing to say, or two, or three… or four…” 13 droned on, leaving the other students to stand awkwardly in place. “Never mind. I’m sure you already know but my quirk is called black hole. No matter what material will get sucked into it’s vortex, the result will be nothing but dust.”

Indeed, black hole was an amazing quirk for rescuing! Destroying anything in the path to safety with barely any effort on 13’s part other than the strength and trajectory of the quirk. It was simple, useful and effective, not to mention it was incredibly practical for the time of clean-up. Overall, a good quirk for rescue with no noticeable drawback!

“It is, however, a power that could easily be used to kill people,” they asserted, looking at their gloved hand from which their quirk emerged. Tenya had never considered that as something 13’s quirk could do, They were a hero, after all. No reason to fear the quirk nor look for the negative aspects of it, but when put that way it did seem quite… villainous, so to say. But of course that was what the quirk would have been in hands of a villain, not a hero! “And naturally, in that way, it’s no different from the quirks of everyone here…”

Pardon?

“In this society of superhumans, quirks are strongly regulated and the requirements for their lawful use are heavily enforced. It is obvious from a glance that this is the make-up of our world. That being said, please do not forget that you need to be careful when using your quirks, any accident could lead to the loss of human life.

During Aizawa-sensei’s physical strength test you learned your true potential, and yesterday during All Might’s battle trial you took a feeling of the danger that comes with using your quirks against others.”

Tenya felt uncomfortable under his armor. Could he use his legs to kill? No, of course he wouldn’t use them to bring harm to innocents! It would be necessary in some cases be it a villain who opposes him, but to kill? Of course not! He was going to be a hero, not some evildoer under the guise of legality. However, with enough speed he could by far surpass even trains, his Recipro-Burst used against a person could easily…

Why was he even thinking about that?! Tenya would to everything in his power to avoid that, and his morals were not ones to bend so easily to the side of cruelty.

“So this lesson will be a brand new start! Let’s get to studying on how to use your quirks for the sake of human life!” No. 13 bowed deeply like an actor after a play, expressing their gratitude, “that is all! You have my gratitude for listening so intently and patiently.”

Uraraka bounced next to Tenya quickly, squealing happily, “that was awesome!”

Tenya agreed, as he clapped seriously in his place. “Bravo, bravo!” he exclaimed, beginning to form a trend with his classmates as they joined in.

It was indeed an inspiring speech, and it gave quite the bit to think about. He was now aware of the dangers of his own power, so he would learn to use it for good in the following rescue classes and to control it for combat in the battle classes of the heroics program!

Aizawa sighed and took everyone’s attention with his flat voice, “all right now, first things firs–”

The underground hero turned around, quickly unsheathing a knife in the blink of an eye with a posture readied for battle. From the side where Tenya was, he could see the man’s fear evident in every bit of him. He had never seen him like that, and he had seen the man quite a lot when Tensei invited his friends over at times. Aizawa was serious, impossible to scare or frighten, had a dry humor the rare times when he deigned a joke appropriate, was accidentally sassy and was surprisingly sweet with his husband (yes, Tenya had been invited to the wedding; mostly because there was nobody available to take care of him).

Tenya never recalled seeing such an expression of raw and unbridled fear in his entire life, let alone from the stoic and brave Aizawa.

“Everyone huddle together and don’t move!” he steadied himself, flinching as a thick, dark purple mist covered the glass roof and coated the area in an unnatural darkness. Jirou exclaimed something about the sunlight being gone, but Tenya barely registered it over the innate feeling of wrongness gnawing deep into his very being and his classmates’ alarmed voices. Something about the sunlight felt important in that moment, like its absence was a harbinger for danger and death.

His throat hurt, burned, it felt like something had cut through it. He shouldn’t have run for help.

“No. 13, protect the students! No matter what, keep them away and try to leave the building!”

They appeared in the plaza—as 13 stood in front of them defensively and for some gods damn unexplainable reason his first instinct was to look at Midoriya in that moment, he needed to run away, sensei couldn’t manage the fight by himself—dozens of villains, easily over a hundred, strode out with horrid bloodlust from a misty portal made of the same thing as what covered the light.

“This isn’t a test, it is real danger!”

Guns, knives, an unknown arsenal of quirks all should’ve been his worries, but he could only focus on the large man with dark skin and an exposed brain and the misty villain that blended with the portal all the villains walked out from.

Eraserhead—in that moment, he was no longer their teacher Aizawa but the underground hero, even if it didn’t feel entirely right to refer to him that way—completely ignored his capture scarf as he adeptly wove his way through the villains like a running stream of water.

Tenya’s ears were ringing, he couldn’t focus on what his classmates were saying or asking or doing as he stood there, frozen. He had seen villain fights before, been there in real life in a couple of occasions even as Tenya had been tried to be used as leverage against his family at the end of a gun’s barrel. Back then he hadn’t been frozen, he hadn’t fought, but he hadn’t groveled or felt his heart thrum against his chest as it was about to burst either.

Evacuate, right, that was what they needed to do. Tenya followed the group, running to the door with the crowd alongside him. Evacuate, flee, run get help.

Sensei needs help, Tenya thought, a young boy’s voice overlapping with his own in his mind as he thought that. But there will be help outside, he just… needs to hold on longer.

The mist villain covered the door, his deep, warbled voice digressing their collective efforts, “I’m afraid I cannot allow you to do that.”

No, no no no, they were going to die. He didn’t know why he knew thought that, but it felt as if it was a proven fact. Death was coming, slow and drawn out with slit throats as the villain monologued something that was abruptly cut off.

“You two hold that one off, I’ll take the other!”

“Midoriya-kun, don’t run away!” No. 13 ordered, far too late as their strongest classmate was long gone out of sight.

Jirou and Yoarashi took ahead the battle, coming from opposite directions with their deadly sharp weapons branded.

First struck Yoarashi, with his katana drawing a horizontal cut while he yelled out the name of his technique before striking with the wild strength of a typhoon, “wind breathing; first form: dust whirlwind cutter!”

“Sound breathing; fifth form: string performance!” Jirou exclaimed at the same time, running ahead with both blades spinning at her sides, avoiding the mist from the villain reaching her. Each spin was a swift block, the beat of a song and the strum of a bass.

They cut through the mist emerging from the villain, the cold and unfeeling darkness snapping apart in the silence of death’s tolls. The cut from Yoarashi expanded further at first, but mended faster, while the slashes from Jirou lasted longer, went deeper. The villain staggered, shocked as the yellow mist from its eyes widened. “What is this…?” the villain questioned. “No matter, you’ll be scattered and tortured before anything more occurs.”

The mist spread, No. 13 tried to use their quirk to stop it from getting any closer to the rest of the students. Nobody got taken; at least nobody but Jirou and Yoarashi, who were the only ones keeping the demon bloodthirsty villain at a distance.

“They are scattered, but still withing the building…!” Shoji confirmed, his extra arms taking shape of another pairs of ears, flexing his limbs to listen farther ahead.

Aoyama quivered, “what can we do then? This chis situation c’est terrible!”

“The villain can teleport, turn intangible and obscure objects! How are we supposed to fight against that?!” Sero stressed, flexing his elbows to prepare his quirk.

Chains rattled down below, danger was palpable in the air and everything blurred together stressfully. These weren’t normal villains, no normal villains could storm into UA unnoticed and stop them from going out in such an organized manner. It was planned, maybe for months, or even years.

“He can warp around and become intangible! 13-sensei, what do we do?” Sero stressed out, flexing his elbows to point them out to ready his quirk. They were all facing the villain now, as he warped to the front of the stairs but still covered the path to survival as he did with the ceiling and sunlight.

No. 13 was at the front, keeping them all safe with their presence. But could they do that? Against such a cruel, ancient, unfeelingly evil formidable foe everything seemed… hopeless. Escape was their best chance, but the thought of it brought back a feeling of pain unlike any he’d ever felt in his life because it was from his death.

“Class vice-president,” the hero called out. Tenya stiffened, staggering back to his senses and ignoring everything his instincts yelled at him to do. Run, don’t run, stay safe, go get help, protect sensei, fast, faster, the fastest he could. “Run back to the school as fast as you can and relay the situation to the rest of the teachers! Villains are attacking, they claim to be able to kill All Might and 3 students are already engaging in combat besides Eraserhead!”

Had it been another situation, normal villains, human foes, Tenya would have opposed to the situation, stated the dishonor that would befall upon him by fleeing and leaving behind his peers. But in that moment, in that situation, all he could think was that it was the only way he could help.

So he nodded, with cold sweat dripping down his neck as his legs moved. The demon villain commented something about the futility of making plans in front of the opponent as Tenya picked up speed, running straight to the mist covering the door.

Fast. Faster. Fast as possible.

The engines at his legs roared with power, fire bursting out hot, hotter, burning with more strength than ever before. He passed through the mist before it could register his presence, his Recipro-Burst that he had invented from the moment he got his quirk being put to use for the reason it was created.

To never be caught as he ran for help.

For Gyomei-sensei, whoever that was, as the name rang in his mind and a powerful gust of wind shot him out of the USJ.

The Recipro-Burst lasted much longer than his 10-second limit, going on for over a minute as he felt like he was about to fall until he arrived at UA. He collapsed over in the teacher’s lounge, barely registering asking for help and explaining the situation. The last thing he remembered before passing out was Snipe running for the principal and Present Mic shooting ahead like a bursting flame.

Unconscious, he dreamed of a childhood not his own in a distant past.

Chapter Text

Sensei’s plan was working like a charm from the moment they stepped out of Kurogiri’s warp gate. Every student was afflicted with the frightened condition within a moment’s notice, some several times over as they were also paralyzed by extension! The last expression on their faces being fear before Nomu ripped them to shreds, well, no need to take his kills away from him, Shigaraki could deal with them. Maybe he’d leave a few to Nomu though… it could level up still and Sensei said it racked up XP by killing people and doing its thing after that. Sensei said it would be out of an R-rated video game, the ones with the cool gore in them. Perfect for applying a debuff to the hero students before killing them off! Even if All Might wasn’t there yet, time was on his side. “Maybe if I kill off some of those brats the boss will finally show up!” he hoped out loud, smiling behind his father’s hand.

Eraserhead was the first to move, jumping over the stairs with a pocket knife held in both hands. His long-range ally NPCs tried to open fire, but Eraserhead’s quirk stopped their quirks entirely. Gods, he was so cool! As he scratched his neck with a manic grin Tomura wanted nothing more than for Sensei to be there so he could steal the hero’s quirk while he turned him to dust… Or maybe Sensei could also make him indestructible like Nomu or Kurogiri! Yes, yes that would be better! Switching sides, applying the corrupted condition to the enemy…!

Kurogiri was taking care of the student NPCs and that astronaut hero, or whatever they were supposed to be, and under the obscured building of UA Tomura looked in awe as Eraserhead gave it his all and effortlessly subdued all the cannon fodder without even needing to use his main skill of the capture scarf. So cool, so cool!

He was trying to fight against him, amazing! The 1v1 PvP was so challenging in the beginning, but it was easy to find Eraserhead’s tell on his quirk so he exploited the cooldown period to dust the knife he had before the final skill came into use again.

Another player joined the fight, a student NPC with a long chain and big muscles. Kurogiri was only supposed to stop the NPCs from leaving, maybe sending them off to the other zones if the estimated fight difficulty rose up—which wouldn’t happen, not with Sensei’s level up hacks and Nomu on his team—so that meant the stupid brat was not following the programming! Stupid glitch, stupid programming error, it made his arms itch all over to dust the brat.

The stupid NPC was as quick as Eraserhead when it came to fighting, getting a hold of his team’s NPCs like nothing and crashing them together, leaving them with the incapacitated condition. “Midoriya! Go back with your classmates, these aren’t normal villains!” Eraserhead shouted. He was perceptive too, that was so cool, Tomura could use that to re-apply the frightened condition on the hero again, it had worn off already when he sprung into battle, but the after-effects were still there if there was something he could find with the quivering voice.

The NPC didn’t reply though, as the chain weapon leveled up and got a pair of deadly additions on the edges. A wrecking ball thing and an axe, definitely a max level weapon but those had a level barrier to use to the fullest, so he was all good still; noob would get rekt real easy if that was the skill it had.

In theory, at least. It shouldn't have been marked as a “hard” battle, heck, it wasn't even marked as that! He was just a rookie student NPC!

But the brat completely ignored him, speaking through the tears in a composed manner, “I am aware, which is why I must do this.”

He went for Nomu, the brat could at least tell who the final boss of that level was, even if he was underleveled. Good, Tomura laughed as Eraserhead’s quirk let go after a good kick to the stomach, letting him use his quirk on the hero's elbow. Let the brat be the first one to give Nomu the XP boost before All Might comes.

Tomura laughed, “you are right on one thing Eraserhead, we are not normal villains. Nomu! Decimate that brat!”

And Eraserhead’s pain and fear would have been wonderful to revel in,but the stupid NPC brat had to take that away from him as that stupid weapon tore through Nomu’s shock absorption without any resistance. “stone breathing; fifth form: arcs of justice!”

The brat tore through Nomu's side with no regard on the fact it would have been a lethal blow had it not been Nomu on the receiving end. A cheater! A glitch! A hacker! It was unfair, that wasn't how the student NPCs were supposed to act! They were weak, with the only good thing about them being their quirks. They weren't supposed to know how to fight, and they weren't supposed to be on board with killing! That hacker was ruining the game for him!

Time and time again, as Nomu regenerated his arms, legs, torso, everything as he roared in pain. Nomu wasn’t supposed to feel pain, that stupid cheater! But he was still indestructible, so it didn’t matter! The hacker couldn’t last forever! The computer would run out of battery soon, and if not that the controls or something would overheat! Nomu was the infallible program to counter any player, even the top 1! So he didn’t need to worry about it, maybe he’d miss the hacker getting humiliated but it would turn out as an victory royale in the end.

Eraserhead continued fighting with his capture weapon, but gone was the edge of danger that came with the knife and instead it was replaced by a desperation to capture Tomura that left the movements raw, uncontrolled, obvious. In all the videos he found—which were very little—Eraserhead always seemed just as capable with the knife as he did with the scarf, but that wasn’t true at all. The scarf was the non-lethal skill, the knife was the final skill he had, and the deadly one.

And it was gone.

Tomura canceled that skill.

“Oh isn’t this great Eraserhead? And you can’t use your quirk to cancel Nomu’s without giving mine back or canceling your student’s~ Accept it already, you have lost!” he cackled, ducking and jumping to avoid the capture weapon all the while. Sensei’s trap room was really good to make him avoid things, even if it was easier to dust them.

His taunt skill worked wonders and left Eraserhead enraged beyond belief as the capture weapon started to move more like a whip with enough strength to pull his head off. The boss had a second phase then? No, that was a skill evolution from the other player! Amazing, the game was getting even better!

A portion weakened, an edge dusted, his palm was cut, his arm dislocated, but it could still turn out better. It was a close battle, but all Tomura had to do was throw some dust at Eraserhead’s eyes and then–

The scarf closed tight around him, leaving Tomura tied with his arms behind his back and out of the reach of the hard as nails thing. Shit! Fuck! That dick tickler captured him! Cheater! Cheater! Cheater!

And then Eraserhead kicked him away, breaking a bone as he sent Tomura rolling off into the fountain where he was violently hit in the back of his head. They were hackers! All of them!

“Nomu! Level up, now!”

Giyuu kicked away the villain as quickly as he could, not even bothering to see where he ended up as he ran to help Himejima’s kid. He took too long stopping the villains from interfering, he needed to find a way to send that demon into the sunlight and preferably before Midoriya had to experience killing a demon for the first time…

Which was something that shouldn’t have happened since Muzan was dead! He was supposed to be dead and gone for good, but apparently the overgrown baby of death and his nightmares just had to be back.

“Nomu! Level up, now!”

Shit.

The demon stopped fighting against Midoriya, turning its overgrown and unnaturally mutated body to the pained villains he had left behind in his wake to stop interference. And it lunged at them, baring its teeth from inside its beak mouth in a snarl.

Double shit.

Midoriya reacted quickly, the kusarigama wrapping around the demon and pulling it back before it reached the horrified villains—civilians—and ate them. Giyuu ran with Midoriya, helping him keep the demon at bay as he pulled at the weapon with the kid. The metal was warm, almost like… nichirin. He somehow had gotten a nichirin weapon. Giyuu thought he had been overthinking things when the angry child, Uzui’s descendant and Himejima’s kid wad that conversation and ignored it for his own good as such.

He activated his quirk unconsciously, hoping that it worked on blood demon arts as well as quirks. It sort of worked, as the demon grew weaker and it was easier to hold it back. Its blood demon art had to do with strength then, that was an easy counter so long as it wasn’t accompanied by some additional technique like the 3rd Uppermoon’s. Thankfully, the demon was weak and had the ravenous and unthinking nature of a recently turned one; unlike the other, which was with the students who were all going to die unless he left Midoriya behind to take care of the demon, which he undoubtedly could do based on what he had seen already but would still scar the kid beyond relief and–

A gust of wind rushed above them, Yoarashi flying from somewhere that definitely wasn’t where he should’ve been to go back against the stronger mist demon. That stupid kid…! No, no, Giyuu shouldn’t have those thoughts when the boy was one of the best chances there were to keep back the demon until help arrived, and by help he meant Kyojuro taking over the fight and sending it outside so the kids wouldn’t have to witness a live decapitation.

Loud, booming and boisterous, Jirou also ran past them even faster. Great heavens, why are the two kids with a modicum of opportunity to stand against the demon both so far from it? The mist, the distance, sudden movements… Fuck, it was a warper. Giyuu hated those with fair reason after the infinity battle.

His eyes were getting even more dry from how long he had spent without blinking, but with raw desperation he used total concentration breathing to send his blood flow to stimulate tears to keep his quirk up for longer. If they could keep that up for a bit longer—with their feet breaking the ground beneath them both from the already damaged pavement and the strength they were putting into it to hold the demon back—and the demon didn’t shift its attention from the injured villains desperately and fearfully crawling away then it would be all good. They just needed to last longer and avoid dying.

Easier said than done, though he had somehow managed to do that before against all odds.

So they kept it up for what felt like an eternity, but so long as the chains didn’t give they were still good. Midoriya was crying with wide, fearful eyes and Giyuu could imagine why. It must have been one thing to hear Himejima speak about demons if he knew how to deal with them, but it was definitely another to come across one face-to-face. Final selection was like that as well; it was one thing to be a demon’s victim, and a completely different one to be the one hunting them down.

In all honesty, Giyuu feared what the implications of demons being back meant in an era where blood demon arts, no, quirks were commonplace amongst the population. Would demons be more powerful then? And what would the situation entail for society and the future? As far as he knew, the only actual demon slayers who were around were Kyojuro, Himejima and him. Maybe the heroics students had potential, but most of them relied far too much on their quirks to be able to train their bodies enough to learn a breathing style before graduation.

They just needed to hold on until somebody came, then things would turn out better.

Kurogiri didn’t know how those children were putting up a fight to him like that. He was a demon, under orders to keep that part of himself hidden from Shigaraki but nevertheless an immortal being who had never felt pain. All for one had allowed him such immortality as the first of many to come a couple of years ago, and since then—since he came into existence with the necessity for human blood the symbol of evil provided for him—he had never come to be in any danger other than a close call with the sun once.

He could withstand even Shigaraki’s quirk, his body reforming faster than the decay could spread and barely registering the pain anyway. So why? Why was it that the purple haired girl’s swords hurt so much? How was it that they burned at his skin, hidden beneath his mist, like the sun did before he instinctively warped into the shadows. But this time he was in the shadows of his own creation, as safe as he could be. In theory.

It had already been bad enough when the engine kid ran past him like a race car, breaking through the metal doors of the installation and passing through his mist before he could warp him off to another area where he wouldn’t be a problem like he did with those armed children.

The only success he’d had was using his warp gates to make No. 13’s quirk backfire on them and severely injure them, maybe even kill them. The smell of the blood wafting through the air guiltily making him ravenous, but he could compose himself enough to not seem outwardly salivating.

THEY’RE A HUMAN, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING, YOU HAVE TO SAVE THEM! YOU KNOW YOUR ACTIONS ARE WRONG!!!

But things turned out south, with the children he had sent away came back faster than should’ve been possible with no injuries, finding his real body and littering it with slashes and cuts. Some of them burned, and others did not. The ones that did were agonizing, pain unlike any other he’d come across. That girl was trouble.

The boy was bleeding, a potent, dizzying smell that was simply sickeningly divine. It was like a godly ichor for his cursed immortal self, something he couldn’t stop thinking off. As a demon, he couldn’t get drunk but if he had to guess what the feeling felt like he’d say it was like that. Uncontrolled movements, a strong need for more, a thin blanket muffling reason to make way for something else.

Kurogiri couldn’t stall for any more time with that the boy who had run off, so he sent the kids away again, this time with more of the children scattered throughout the establishment with his blood demon art; warping mist: scatter. He made sure to keep apart the two armed ones with no fear of death, the others were far too afraid to fight back; frozen in fear.

Only a few students stayed behind, including those who were treating the hero’s injuries. They still couldn’t intervene, so he encompassed the smaller space above the stairs just as he did with the entirety of the Unforeseen Simulation Joint. Nobody saw him there, he was everything and anything in that space as his mist-covered silhouette blended with the shadows he brought forth. With that finished, he stepped out and behind Shigaraki, cutting through his restraints with his claws.

You shouldn’t have claws and you know it. Pick up a sword and set things straight.

“Shigaraki Tomura. One of the students escaped me, but I still managed to injure the hero that was left behind, most likely a fatal wound.” It felt wrong to say that, he shouldn’t be saying that. “It will not take long for us to be found, we should take a swift leave now.”

Shigaraki grunted as he scratched at his face, his brittle nails pulling out skin more viciously than Kurogiri could ever fathom doing himself. It was no mystery as to why Shigaraki’s skin was in such a deplorable condition, being that such brutish behavior was the treatment it often received. “Damn it Kurogiri! I’d dust you right now if you weren’t our gate out of here…! They’ll send dozens of pros at us and we can’t win against that, damn it, damn it all!”

Shigaraki suddenly calmed down, a sharp and sadistic gleam revealing itself through his mop of light blue hair and the cold, dead hand he used to cover his face. “Although… we can still take the symbol of peace’s pride down a notch…!”

His charge lunged ahead, right at the hero and student who were focusing all their forces at keeping the other demon from eating the villains that Shigaraki hired. Kurogiri knew he shouldn’t have felt bad, that he shouldn’t have so much empathy as they came for nothing other than the murder of the number one hero. He was aware that demons weren’t supposed to have empathy, that was the reason he had spent so much time with the doctor before he decided to lie, to act, to have one sliver of humanity in him even if he was not.

He looked away as Shigaraki got at an arm’s reach from the unfortunate child who would soon be nothing but a puddle of gore.

The thought made him feel voracious, and the voracity made him feel ill.

Cracking asphalt beneath his feet, the nichirin chains pulled tight as they felt on the verge of snapping. Well, not quite there yet based on experience, but certainly close as they held the demon back from murdering and feasting on the human attackers. Those men were undoubtedly cruel, with no hesitation on regards to attacking a high school.

Aizawa was strong, for certain, as the hero helped Gyomei keep the demon from eating the villains. The hero could not have known what a demon was, but the mindless hunger and violent nature of a recently turned demon was a clear threat no matter the knowledge held by the person present. He listened to the snarls, the terror, the united thought shared amongst those at the opposing end of the watering maw of the beast; survival of the fittest, every man for themselves.

It would have been no problem for him to kill the demon from the first blow, it was fairly sturdy for a new demon but nevertheless weaker than the average mission he used to have. The problem was that Gyomei was substantially weaker than before with his rusted technique and younger body, besides the fact that he couldn’t tear the head off what could be confused with a mutant human. He had been accused of murder enough for several lifetimes.

All he could manage to be focused in was keeping everyone alive for once. If he tried to kill the demon, then somebody would die, and if he tried to move it just a smidge there was the risk it would manage to get out and ravage those who were unconscious and undefended. It was supposed to be rescue training before it all went south, and maybe he couldn’t rescue everyone but if he could keep them alive and outside the demon’s stomach it was all good…

Someone ran at them from behind, moving with purpose and an unmistakable ire. “Midoriya!” Aizawa warned, moments before the villain was about to make contact with him. Did he have a weapon? Claws? Any quirk would be enough to cause severe damage with a slow enough reaction.

Gyomei kicked the villain away to the left with heavily controlled strength, still not weak enough to avoid breaking his ribs with a crack, dangerously shifting the pull against the demon but it just got strong enough—somehow—to resist the pull down to its right. The villain’s hand held on to his leg as he was pulling it away, causing the bandages he had wrapped around his calf to turn to dust and painfully broke through his most external layer of skin from the leg. Shinazugawa and Tengen were supposedly fighting the other demon, but he felt its unnatural presence of rotten death and prolonged decay a few meters away from him.

He registered offhandedly the man cursing him out as he regained his balance, but there were more pressing matters than those unimportant distractions.

It was hard to stay strong when Gyomei had to take an action that would undoubtedly lead to death, with his mind running through all of the possible endings that would come for every course of action he could take. Death, blood, pain, suffering in each and every one of them. He should have acted earlier…! If he had decided to risk it and kill the demon when he was still facing off against only one then it would have been guaranteed that nobody would’ve died from that one!

“Sound breathing; first form: roar!”

“Wind breathing; fourth form: rising dust storm!”

Gyomei let out a sigh of relief, still not daring to release his hold on the demon with his kusarigama until everything was settled. There was a gust of wind from Shinazugawa’s wind breathing as he striked from above, blowing away his tears, the glass ceiling and… the demon’s coating over the area! He cleared way for the sunlight! The demon agonizing in inhuman wails as the distinct burnt smell of ashes wafted through the air. Uzui’s attack on the other demon was deafeningly loud, crashing through the warper demon with both of his blades. Its presence also disappeared, but there was no smell of ashes and fire as it did.

The glass was getting close, dangerously fast. Before any of them could get injured, Gyomei shifted his posture and the chains from his hands, “stone breathing; third form, improved: stone barrier!” He followed the familiar motions of the third form, but instead of centering them around his body he extended them to form a shield above them to crash and dust all the crystal to avoid injury.

A warm feeling finally landed on his skin, the sunlight, and he finally managed to somewhat relax. The feeling was largely unanimous, with Aizawa standing back and sighing in relief, Shinazugawa huffing and kicking at the demon’s ashen remains and Tengen cursing, “to hell with it, it warped away…”

Gyomei took a deep breath and regained his composure, he could fear the implications of demons still existing after everyone was safe. Sadly, just because humans were less dangerous it did not mean they could be any less vicious. “The battle is still not over, everyone must be found and accounted for and all wounds need to be tended…”

“You are injured yourself Midoriya-kun, sit down first,” Aizawa chastized, taking out something for himself and coaxing him to the ground.

The gates opened with a loud booming sound, help finally arriving now that the most danger was gone; now that the demons were gone, one dead and one escaped, where it could create more of its cursed kin, feast on humans and innocents, murder in cold blood–

Aizawa turned back and sighed in relief, murmuring a fond nickname for someone who came to help under his breath, “Kyo…”

“Have no fear,” All Might proclaimed, loud, heavy and severe, like a thick layer of snow had fallen over the previous positivity and joy the famous symbol of peace had, “for I am here.”

They were outside of the USJ in that moment, huddled together in the stairs at the front of the building. Gyomei held his kusarigama in his hands, focused on keeping hidden anything other than the chain. They were heavy, every disconnected peace weighing on his grasp as he murmured a prayer for each one of them. It was grounding, in a way, but there shouldn’t have been any reason to be grounding himself to begin with, there shouldn’t have been any demons anymore.

He recalled the unsettling feeling of nervousness he’d had since he woke up that morning. Every morning before demons were killed he’d also felt it in the air, something so normal in his routine he didn’t pay attention to it until it was no longer there. And now it is back.

His leg was stretched over the ground, just as he sat on the lowest level of stairs to allow himself to do that even if his other leg was close to his chest because of that. The ground was dusty, dirty, the last breezes of filth seeping through his fresh bandages as he insisted the nurse—Recovery Girl—treated others before him, he had stopped the bleeding almost as soon as it begun and he knew how to treat his wounds, the others needed the help more than he did.

The blaring sirens of No. 13’s ambulance drove off to get them medical aid quickly, leaving behind the ones from several police cars which came and went with all the villains who were captured. Most injured, but still alive; none of them fell to the demons. Still, that begged the question of why the demons allied themselves with so many humans? It couldn’t have been that the warper threatened the humans, not when the one who attempted to attack him had also given orders to the other demon—the freshly turned one who should’ve had nothing in its mind but hunger—which it listened to and followed. There was something else at play, either the demon progenitor, be it the old one or a new one, had enlisted both humans and demons to do their bidding or had a mass mind control blood demon art. Whichever it was… it couldn’t have been good.

He choked back a sob, one for all of those who had died to demons and fell fighting against them. It was not fair, despite how childish the statement was considered it just wasn’t. Demons were supposed to be gone for good, all dead save for Yushiro and his cat. Could they…? No, it made no sense. Yushiro was very open with his disgust for human blood spilled in the way the old demons did, and his presence was not tainted in the way other demons’ were. He was overthinking things, the stress of everything was getting to him.

Close behind some of the kids were crying, trembling, weeping; he recognized them from Hagakure and Uraraka, huddled close together. Some other of the other children—all of whom were boys this time—were trembling and fighting against the tears. Those were the ones who were worse off, possibly the ones who saw No. 13’s injury occur, or the demon vanish into nothing but ashes under the sun. I would have been worse had he actually beheaded the demon, even if it would have been better in the long term, but those children were just that; children.

He had a nagging feeling telling him to go comfort them, to bring them close, maybe pat their head, tell them everything would be alright; but simultaneous to that thought, his hands hurt, felt broken and stained with blood as they did the first time he killed a demon. He brought a hand to his forehead, right where he had the scar, to find it still dry; both his hand and his forehead. Uninjured, unblemished. He took another breath, murmured another prayer, traced his hand over the juzu beads strung around his neck.

Four things he could listen; the blaring sirens, the soft rattling of his kusarigama, the footfall from officers and heroes moving in and out the scene, 19 heartbeats on the stairs, one per student.

One is missing. Please, I pray, let that child still be alive.

Three things he could feel; the warm nichirin over his calloused hands, the cool glass of his juzu beads on his neck, the freshly applied bandages on his left calf burning against the raw skin.

Its the same I lost back then.

Two things he could smell; the sweat from how much everyone gave it their all to survive, the distant smoke from where something caught on fire inside.

The demon gave off that same smell; they are back.

One thing he could taste; the saltiness of his ever-flowing tears.

The ones I thought I would never shed again, demons were supposed to be gone.

There was some distance between the actual children and the hashira, and there was some more distance between them and him even if it was less. In part it might have been because he chose to sit in the farthest edge where the sun shone relentlessly over him, reminding him he was still alive, and still safe; to an extent. Still, the distance was familiar, yes, and unjust all the same. Despite having been friends for Tengen for 12 years after their rebirth they never got closer past a certain barrier they both put up around their fears and deep-rooted faults, there hadn’t had been that thing between him and Shinazugawa after the battle, there had ought to be a deeper friendship between them in the end.

Someone walked up to him, draping him in a comfortably heavy blanket and offering him a warm cup filled with some sweet beverage, it’s soft scent reaching him as if it offered some comfort. “It’s hot chocolate,” the hero, Present Mic, shared softly. His heartbeat was fast, Gyomei noticed, afraid. The hero heard something, saw something, knew something. “Drink up kid, what you went through in there was rough. It shouldn’t have happened.”

He nodded wordlessly, blowing off some of the hot steam coming from the cup before taking a sip. It was certainly as sweet as it smelled, if not more. It tasted good, although his palate was more of one for simple and softer flavors. The warmth was the better part of the drink, coursing inside him as it slowly settled his racing heart. Once he was certain his voice would not break if he spoke louder than a wet and choked out whisper, he murmured a short thanks.

“You acted bravely Midoriya-kun, but if you ever come across another situation like this you need to remember you are still a child. You have so much left to live, so don’t throw it away in an impossible battle, alright?”

The words echoed in his mind like a faulty disk repeating the same thing over and over without end. Still a child, he wished it was like that. He hadn’t been a child since forever, even if it felt as that at times when there was a stark peace, when everything felt strikingly alright and he could almost forget the screams, the agony, the pain and blood and suffering and sacrifices of all those who laid their lives down for that perpetual calm. Almost.

Gyomei replied by stating all that he could without revealing the existence of demons, the kusarigama a heavy weight on his lap reminded by every word he uttered out, “if I hadn’t fought someone would have died in there. Even if they were of the opposing side of the battle, they are still human and their lives hold insurmountable value.”

“You talk like someone I knew once,” the hero huffed, placing a hand on his head and ruffling his hair affectionately. That was what it felt like to be on the opposing side of the action, huh? Gyomei had almost forgot why he enjoyed giving it so much to others, it felt nice, a wordless reassurance that there was somebody to rely on.

A man can dream.

Present Mic continued on, although his voice took a sadder tone, almost reminiscent, safe to say the man he spoke of was long dead and gone, “he also thought that every life had value, no matter what they did. Strongest man I ever met.”

“Namu amida butsu, I am flattered, but that is far too much praise by association sensei.”

There was a silence after that, thick and cold despite the warm sunlight they both basked in and the hot drink he held with both hands. Something lingered in the air, words that remained unsaid through them both. Gyomei’s own, deeply ingrained denial of value and the hero’s own thoughts hidden behind an expression that rested behind the veil of nothingness he saw.

“It’s concern as well, Midoriya-kun. He was selfless to a fault, died denying what could have saved him for others to keep on going,” the man finally admitted, his words concealing something deeper, an open wound that never truly closed, or maybe just hadn’t had the time to do so yet. “Promise me, that you won’t throw away everything you have like that, specially not so young. Alright kid?”

Gyomei nodded, ignoring the uncomfortable sensation that came with someone else so genuinely believing he was just a child, that at just 15 he was ready to lay down his life for others. But that was what he was doing though, wasn’t it? That was what he had always done, from the moment Oyakata-sama bought him almost a decade more of life until the second his heart stopped beating in his chest. He just had never realized before how it must have appeared to those around him. No, that was not true, he did realize that, and that was also why he kept himself apart.

“Midoriya Izuku, correct?” another man stepped up. Not a hero, he assumed, judging by the fact that he had never heard that voice during UA’s classes. A police officer then, that was the most likely case. “Please come with me, there are some questions that we need you to answer about the attack.”

Police, attack, demons, him, battle, blood. He knew how that story ended, he knew that his voice wouldn’t be listened to, that someone else’s word, intentionally condemning or not, would be taken over the blind man’s. Still, he was careful to control his expression so it wouldn’t reveal something he shouldn’t, nodding tearfully as he had been all the time since the demon first appeared.

Gyomei placed the mug on a step of the stairs, left behind the comfortably weighed blanket and stood up to walk away. A few steps away, he turned back and waved softly to both the hero and the other hashira. If either of them saw it, if either of them waved back, he didn’t know.

The room was cold, sterile, with still air and a controlled space. The chair was smooth, cold and hard on his back. The table was a similar material, larger, colder, even. His mind was alert, nervous, racing with thousands upon thousands of possible outcomes for the situation, most of which were based on previous experience.

Inside the emptied classroom, Gyomei was alone with his thoughts. The officer said that a detective would come soon to question him, and he had to wait all the while. There would undoubtedly be questions about the demon that burnt in the sun, so what would he do about that? Would he lie, subsequently leaving the institution ignorant to the threats of demonkind and as such unprepared? Or would he say the truth, risking the same result as last time, now that there were people who would worry about him if that ended up happening.

Gyomei turned to the door as it opened in front of the classroom, footsteps sounding over the floor without much more to them, even though it felt like there was much more to it than than just that. “Hello Midoriya-kun, I am detective Tsukauchi Naomasa and I’ll be asking some questions about the attack from just now, if that is alright with you,” the officer—detective—explained, taking a chair from the desk in front of him to seat down as well. Gyomei nodded, preferring to get over with that as soon as possible and do whatever came to be when the time came. The detective then asked, “I’ll be recording in that case, do you have any problem with that?” He shook his head as an answer, and with a quiet beep the recording started.

“Alright then, could you please state your name for the record?” Tsukauchi asked.

“Midoriya Izuku,” Gyomei replied with practiced ease, it truly being his name despite how much it felt like a lie in that moment. It was just as true as it was false, Izuku was his name in all technicality and legality as well, but while it did feel that way at times in that moment he felt like the stone hashira and the stone hashira only.

Tsukauchi’s heartbeat almost skipped a beat, and he clicked a pen he had in his hands twice in quick succession. Still, he continued without showing anything else, “what is your age and birthday Midoriya-kun?”

“I’m 14,” it felt like a lie again, despite it being just as true as his name being Izuku. The detective clicked the pen in the same way after his heart almost skipped another beat. “And my birthday is on July 15th.” That last statement was easier to accept, he had never celebrated his birthday until he was born again, so July 15th felt more like his birthday than August 27th. That statement got no skipped heartbeats and no pen clicking, it was obvious something else caused it the two times before that last one. When it almost skipped a beat he felt like he was lying or telling half truths, but when he said something that felt true it didn’t garner that, so there was a relation between that and most likely a quirk at play. He’d have to be careful with his words, or make sure to rationalize them enough so they felt like the truth to him.

The detective continued, “could you please give your account of the events that happened leading up to the attack?”

“Namu amida butsu… ever since the morning there was an odd feeling of unease in me, which only grew stronger during the alarm during lunch, other than that there wasn’t anything particularly of note until we arrived there,” Gyomei explained, stating the absolute truth and bringing forth no more skipping heartbeats or clicks of the pen. “Inside the installations No. 13 gave us a discourse about the dangers of quirks, and as Aizawa-sensei was about to give us an explanation for the exercise there was this… presence, that suddenly filled the air.”

“A presence? Could you elaborate on that?”

“It was rotten, like death, and stung of prolonged decay. That would be the best way to place it into words, it was the kind of thing that could only be known by feeling it.” Demonic, he almost wished to say, inhuman, but he knew that those words could be wildly misunderstood for quirkism, discrimination against those with mutant quirks. He didn’t wish to spread that hateful rhetoric any further, because even if they looked different all those people were still human, were still alive and did not bring any harm to others either way. At least not all of them, there were always exceptions to the rule, but with humans the minority was of those who brought harm compared to demons which had the opposite exceptions of those few whom did not.

“Alright,” the detective said, writing down something with the same pen he clicked before on a notebook, softly brushing the tip against the paper. “Please continue with what you were saying.”

“I froze when I felt it, various others did too; I felt their muscles stiffen near me, heard their breathing pick up,” it was his shock, his fear that made him loose control like that. Had they been any closer, had the demons been any faster, and somebody would have died because of that. “Aizawa-sensei was the first to react, he unsheathed a blade—a knife if I’m not mistaken—and ordered us to stay close before jumping down to the fight by himself. A villain—”because the word was defined by someone who used their quirk, also known as singularity, to bring harm to others for personal gain without due legality“—from the ones that attacked separated from the rest, came up to attack the students at the top of the stairs. He used a warping quirk to do that, most likely was the one who brought them in and out for the attack and as such had a high knowledge of the group’s plans. Besides, that same quirk was also used to completely cover the sunlight from going inside the USJ.”

“Could you please give more details on the villain’s quirk?”

“It was a mist, a black one, judging by the name he presented himself as; “Kurogiri.” I can’t pick up that well things as that with my senses, Kyoka-chan and Yoarashi-san must have more information,” he admitted, focusing on not calling Tengen and Shinazugawa by their old names. Both of those were their names, and his focus proved effective as there was no reaction from the detective.

The detective wrote that down as well, stopping abruptly to ask for clarification, “you used the phrase “with my senses” to explain what you saw, what did you mean by that?”

The question he rued, but he would be honest and the detective would know with his quirk so there shouldn’t be any problems stemming from that. No accusations of lies, not in that case. “I used that expression due to my lack of eyesight,” he began. There was a beat, two. No skipped heartbeats, no clicked pens; it was all true, there was no reason for that to happen, but his distrust ran deep. “My other senses—hearing, touch, smell and even taste—are more developed because of that. I could hear perfectly what was happening and feel to an extent as well. Mist, however, makes no sound and has no real feeling, and because it was made by a quirk there was no smell of humidity in it. Still, I could hear where the villain was through it all.”

Tsukauchi was surprised, evidently, he likely couldn’t imagine that he had made it to the hero course without seeing. There was a stunned silence that seemed to stretch eternally, on and on without end right until the detective finally spoke up, slowly, almost afraid of offending him with whatever he said, “I understand, please continue.”

“I stepped away from that fight, there was another villain down bellow with a similar presence of danger and if I stayed with the group I wouldn’t have been of any help. Kyoka-chan and Yoarashi-san jumped into battle with that villain, while I went to fight the other one down in the center of the building, near a fountain.”

“So you disregarded your teacher’s direct orders and engaged against the villains without permission then?”

“I had to do that. The villain posed a clear threat to everyone in the vicinity, even those who came alongside to aid in the act. Aizawa-sensei already had his hands full by battling against the other villains in large amounts, and if I had not acted I know for certain several of the incapacitated villains would have been massacred on the spot. The villain was bloodthirsty, savage, acted against the students violently and at one point even attempted to do the same against his allies as I just said. I noticed both a regeneration quirk and a degree of shock absorption or resistance quirk in the villain paired with a strength and speed quirk, for most of the fight I simply bought time for someone to arrive,” he confessed, pushing it a bit with the last statement but keeping it true by not specifying that he was waiting for either Tengen or Shinazugawa so one could keep the demon from killing people while the other decapitated it.

Nothing out of the ordinary, so he kept going.

“When the villain went against the other villains all I could do what hold him back with my kusarigama. I stayed there for a while by myself, and once Aizawa-sensei finished the fight he was in he came to help hold him back. While that happened, there was a point in which Kyoka-chan and Yoarashi-san passed by quickly, something I believe was caused by the mist villain’s warping ability. There was a standstill, and near the end the mist villain appeared behind us, coaxing the man whom Aizawa-sensei was fighting to attempt an attack at me which I stopped with a kick against his ribcage, but his quirk was one that allowed him to decay anything he came into contact with and as such I got a superficial injury in my calf. Shortly after that Kyoka-chan and Yoarashi-san came back into the battle, in which the mist villain warped away and—for some reason—the other villain, the one which I was fighting against, disappeared into nothing with only the burnt smell of ash being left behind. Just after that All Might arrived loudly with Present Mic, and soon were followed by the other members of the UA staff and the police.”

The detective finally nodded, stopping the unending writing to express, “very well then thank you for your honesty, Midoriya-kun.”

Gyomei nodded, the tears that hadn’t stopped since the demons first reappeared falling down his face to the ground. He stood up, walked away far too eager to be sure he wasn’t getting locked up even if he knew that logically there wasn’t any reason for them to do that.

“Wait, just one last question,” Tsukauchi spoke up once he was already at the door, “what is your quirk again?”

Silence, and then, right as he was about to walk out he calmly stated, “I’m quirkless.”

Chapter Text

His mom ran out to meet him with a hug as soon as Gyomei stepped out of the police car escort, crushing his tired and trembling body with the strength of all of her love. She was crying, as was he. “I’m so glad you’re alright Izuku… I was so worried,” she sobbed.

Gyomei hesitantly returned the hug, still feeling the repulsive sensation of the broken bones that he used to have that never fully healed coated by thick blood that he never seemed to be able to wash away. His actions were slow, hesitant, afraid that if he lingered to long in the gesture that he oh so desperately needed his mom would go away from his life; just like everyone he’d had in the last one.

He had so much to lose this time, it made him frightened to even entertain the thought. He’d allowed himself to get intimate with others, to make close relationships because of the certainty that there would be no demon running under the moonlight to come take it all away from him. What would he do if a demon were to kill his mom? Or brought down its claws upon Kouda? What if one shattered Ojiro’s future? Destroyed Monoma’s dreams? He didn’t think he would be able to bear that guilt knowing it came because he failed.

He started crying even worse, feeling his eyes close and his body tremble while he was hunched down. “Hello mom,” he choked out, quivering, wet and pitiful. He hated how weak he felt, there was no conviction in that, no purpose, no strength to let him slay demons. He’d thrown those things away once he was certain he wouldn’t need to dance with death every other night, and now that there was a need for them it hurt to dig through the old boxes carrying the weight of his past.

“Come on honey, let’s head inside…”

He nodded, letting her take his hand to guide him up into the small, cozy apartment they lived in. It felt wrong to let himself rely on others when he could do things for himself, when he needed to do things for himself in that moment more than ever. He couldn’t afford as much as an instant of weakness with demons back.

His mom unlocked the door with a click, creaking loudly as it moved wide open. Nibbles’ little claws rushed against the ground, straight out the door to rub against his uninjured leg. He knelt down, extending his hand for the cat to lean against. She was cute, soft, precious. It felt easier to calm down whenever there were cats near, even if they were distracting more often than not. She climbed up to his shoulders, lying down like she was the owner of his body.

Gyomei stood up slowly, carefully, trudging behind his mom to enter the apartment, locking the door behind him. There was an odd mixture of sorrowful exhaustion and nervous hyperactivity welling inside his body, threatening to either have him fall unconscious for at the very least 20 hours the second he lost focus or throw him into a week-long bout of sleeplessness.

“I– I think I’ll go take a shower,” he mumbled, letting Nibbles down on the couch before heading to his room.

He set down his schoolbag besides the desk with a muffled thud, quietly hissing in pain after bumping his elbow against a shelf. Something fell, cracked over the carpeted floor. He knelt down swiftly, his fingers running over the clay figure he’d formed out of his past. It was a flower; thin, easy to create and represented the last thing he had gotten from his family that last life.

His older brother had given it to him—the real flower—when it was just the two of them remaining; after their mom passed while giving birth to his youngest sister who didn’t survive enough to get a name, their dad starved so they could eat and their other sister got fatally sick to the point she coaxed them away so the two of them could live on. He didn’t need any demons to have faced so much loss… all of them had passed without that evil, and his other dad—Hisashi—had also befallen a similar fate.

Gyomei placed the cracked piece on top of his desk and pushed back those mournful thoughts for the time being. A cold shower was what he needed… well, maybe it would be better to take a warm one to relax and slow all those thoughts. Yes, he was already awake enough, better to just relax until he was thinking straight once more.

The water rushed down like a waterfall against the ceramic tiles on the floor, hot steam filling the bathroom and clinging to him uncomfortably. It stung at his injuries, even if they were closed already, but at least those weren’t broken bones that ached when the weather changed or rain was about to fall.

The water combined with his tears as they fell. Now that he thought about it he should have drank some water before going to shower; his throat was dry, his nose was stuffy and his head was beginning to hurt. He refused to fall sick, it shouldn’t have been possible with total concentration breathing raising his body temperature and natural defenses, so it had to be from crying nonstop for several hours without end, and that… wasn’t healthy.

After showering he unceremoniously flopped onto his bed, his exhaustion finally defeating his anxiety as his muscles gave out entirely. He was entirely prepared to honk out for hours without end if it meant not thinking about what happened at UA.

“Izuku, dear, do you want to talk about what happened at school today?” his mom offered, sitting on the side of his bed. He hadn’t noticed when she walked in… he really needed to rest.

Gyomei shook his head, pouting and turning his head to the other side. He apologized, “not at this time, perhaps… tomorrow. It is not something I wish to think about at the time.”

He felt her hand softly land on his shoulder, reassuringly. It was nice, but it made him all the more scared to losing her. No, he was not going to think about that before going to sleep! He already had guaranteed nightmares for the night, there was no need to make them any worse. He just… leaned against the touch and avoided thinking about it.

“Alright honey, we’ll talk about it tomorrow. I’ve got to go to work now, my new boss didn’t agree to give me the night off but I’ll spend the whole day with you tomorrow, mkay?” his mom apologized, brushing back his humid hair from his forehead and giving him a small kiss before he nodded. “I left you some water on your bedside table, don’t dehydrate yourself Izuku.”

She walked away quietly, and Gyomei could only manage to get the words out of his throat once she had left the apartment; a quiet, choked out, “thank you,” before he soothed his parched throat with the water.

Considering that he was already standing up, he took the chance to move the covers so he could snuggle in for the night instead of dropping over them without a care for them. The blankets were warm, soft, a fuzzy cocoon where he could forget about everything until he was ready to think about it.

He murmured a quiet prayer to still himself, relax, breathe consciously and slowly. Curled up on the bed so his feet wouldn’t dangle above the edge, the softer blankets held close to his face with half-lidded eyes. He was completely prepared to just drift off to slumber, preferably dreamless but he would take a tame nightmare of demons over one of his guilt, loss, grief, family and those he could still lose.

And his dad, disappeared without a trace all of a sudden. When he went out at night he listened, paid close attention, lurked in the shadows hoping for something, anything to give a lead. He never spoke of his name, not when it could trace back to him, but he hoped; clinging on to the dangerous feeling of the emotion that was never lost.

He shuffled over the bed for what felt like hours, eventually hunger taking over and making him trudge his way out into the kitchen to grab something quick to eat while he listened to the messages from a new group chat Tengen had made with Shinazugawa and him.

FlamboyanceReborn
From what I overheard all their plans had been in motion for 10-ish years now, there’s got to be more demons than those two.

EndeavwhoreHater
Great, so we’re dealing with a bunch of demons we can’t bring to light because we’d be seen as quirkists and shit
I’m honestly weighing the merits of going vigilante atp, we did it before as demon slayers so why not now?

FlamboyanceReborn
If there’s someone you could as it’d be Gyomei-san, but he’s offline rn so you’ll have to wait

EndeavwhoreHater
Just tell me how to get in contact with Yushiro, i need the nichirin if i’ll be going out
and also if i’m not going out
i just need it

FlamboyanceReborn
i think it would be better to learn how to make Kocho’s poisons, those can also help with bdas at least

EndeavwhoreHater
yeah well if you have any leads on that you can tell me, i don’t even know where to get wisteria to begin with
ill just go force those fuckers out into the sunlight, that worked well enough for me

FlamboyanceReborn
because you were marechi, who knows if you still are

10 years, and his dad disappeared 9 years ago. With the lack of leads or evidence pointing to anything and the first-time appearance of the group of villains allied with those demons, there was a possibility that his dad was a…

No! Of course it couldn’t have been true! Gyomei was just tired, anxious, delirious, tired, and he needed a breath of fresh air… Yeah, after a walk outside he would be all better.

Kyojuro drove back home with a severely stressed Giyuu that was—with fair reason—ready to jump out of the window at the most minimum sound. He wasn’t there when it happened, the attack, the demons, only arriving in time to feel the demonic presence fade away alongside its ashes under the sunlight, but that was still enough to leave him on edge.

“Don’t worry Yuu, we’ll figure things out,” Kyojuro promised on a stop light, placing his hand over Giyuu’s comfortingly. One way or another, things would turn out alright. They’d both be there to make sure of it.

Giyuu sighed, burying his face further in his capture weapon. Kyojuro could see the short flashes of color from the sewn-on fabric identical to his old haori—the ones that came from his sister and Sabito—from the corner of his vision. He didn’t know much of how Giyuu’s sister was, but he did know Sabito; he was reborn with them after all. Kyojuro internally winced at the thought, at the broken building that crushed him and the knowledge that it wasn’t the first time he’d come across such an end, that it wasn’t the first time his body was never seen again.

The silence stretched on, and Kyojuro didn’t push as he continued the drive back to their home. He didn’t want to think about it in all honesty, he wanted to hope that it was all a nightmare like the ones that had never gone away. “Himejima-san’s kid had nichirin,” Giyuu finally said, or maybe remembered after everything, after the shock, “I know it was, the metal was distinctively warm.”

“That’s good, but a kid shouldn’t be the one fighting demons. Not anymore,” Kyojuro resolved, gripping the wheel so tight his veins started bulging under his skin. If he could help it, there would be no more children running headfirst into an unwinnable battle.

He parked the car and got out, opening the door for Giyuu with a smile in hopes of getting him to feel somewhat better, distract him for a few seconds at the very least. Giyuu continued, “there’s a chance we can get nichirin. I know one of the kids in my class can make things out of nothing with her quirk, with any luck she can replicate nichirin and send it to make katanas.”

Kyojuro nodded and added, “Nedzu will have to give us the complete student files now, it isn’t safe to keep that from us now. We can figure out how that quirk works.” He opened the door, listening to their cats meowing behind the barred gate to the second floor. Giyuu’s expression almost softened before turning rough again. Kyojuro recognized that look—the furrowed eyebrows twitching slightly, concerned and avoidant gaze pointed at the floor, twitching fingers of his left hand as they looked for the sword that wasn’t there—and wordlessly sat with him on the couch, softly passing his hand through his long, dark hair.

“And Nedzu might also know something else of Himejima-san, where to find him. He had to be the one who got Midoriya-kun the kusarigama, if I manage to find him sooner than later we can get into contact. I could be direct to the point, just saying what happened, who I am,” Giyuu affirmed, wether to himself or Kyojuro was unclear.

He frowned, leaning against Giyuu with their hands intertwined. “Are you really going out to patrol tonight Yuu? After everything from today?”

“Especially after everything from today. I’m one of the few people who can do something about this now, we’re of the few people who can fight against demons wether we have nichirin or not.” Giyuu took a deep breath, deeper than the ones they normally took even with total concentration breathing. It was shaky, fearful, raw with worry. Despite all that, all the humane fear and concern he held, Kyojuro’s beloved still resolved, “it is not something I want to do, but something I have to do. For us, for everyone.”

Still, they stayed in place for hours at a time, no movement, no tears, just quiet fear from both of them. Demons are back; the knowledge hanged in the air, deep and heavy. Kyojuro’s hand also searched for his katana unconsciously, landing on the hilt of the blade made of a standard steel alloy fashioned in old familiarity. His mind wandered back to Tensei’s poor younger brother, the kid who broke through his limits to ask help for his classmates who were still stuck at the time with two demons. Kyojuro hoped he would never had to see that expression of helpless fear, the very one the poor kid had when he burst through the door covered in sweat, dropping down on the ground as he heaved out barely comprehensible words with the engines on his legs burnt and muscles torn because he ran.

Giyuu scouted over the rooftops with Kyojuro’s borrowed blade at his hip. The night was stagnant, unmoving as he followed a new route in hopes of intersecting Himejima and share information (or at the very least have a full conversation).

Surprisingly, Nedzu had been no help at all when he asked. And to be fair the rodent was managing everything that happened that day at UA, dealing with the paperwork, and—more likely than not—getting involved in something of catastrophic proportions from behind the scenes. The principal had basically told him that Himejima’s behavior would be largely unpredictable in regards to the theory he had previously mentioned during the entrance exam, but one thing would be very likely was that he would make sure that Midoriya was alright, be it by patrolling near the kids home or checking up on him in his civilian identity.

Did the principal give away the kid’s area of residency just like that? Yes.

Was that irresponsible? Also yes.

Was Giyuu still patrolling the area? Definitely.

So there he was, running between alleyways and over rooftops in search for some kind of villainous activity and a very concrete kind of vigilantism. Still, nothing seemed to be happening. No robberies, no drug deals, not even irresponsible drunks wreaking havoc! The most he did find was a very loud and fat raccoon stuck in a dumpster because it dove in and couldn’t get out.

The ungrateful shit almost bit Giyuu when he placed it down.

The slayer groaned as his wrist watch barely striked 11pm, glaring at the small shadow of the raccoon scurry off in the dark only to land in another dumpster in an alleyway in front of the one he was at. He was not getting it out again.

He didn’t need to either way, when a large, shadowed figure dropped down from the rooftops to do that instead. Giyuu lurked nearby, leaping up to one of the rooftops nearby to get a better view. A veiled haka hat covering his face, the green yukata pulling short when he outstretched his arms to softly coax with low tones the animal until it walked by itself into his hands, allowing itself be picked up and freed at its own pace.

Himejima turned around, slowly, calmly, his hidden gaze pointed straight at him as he spoke without as much as a hint of nervousness or concern, “you have been staring for a while. Why is that so?”

“Can’t hide anything from you, can’t say I’m surprised,” Giyuu sighed, sitting on the ledge with Kyojuro’s katana on his lap. Himejima gave a short, curt nod and leaped to the rooftop as well. He was a few meters away, the chain at the edge of his bokken swaying with his movements as he slowly knelt down. The stone hashira muttered a prayer, clasping his hands together with small droplets of tears falling on his lap from behind the veil covering his face.

“Perhaps due to the day’s events, news have spread quite fast about UA’s recent attack. People are on edge, and the night is still,” Himejima admitted with careful, measured words. Giyuu couldn’t help but wonder why was it that his voice was still the same when his, Kyojuro’s, Sabito’s were different. Maybe it was also part of his quirk, the very one that made his silhouette blurry, the edges of his form mush together with as much as the slightest movement every time. “You are a teacher there, correct? I presume that is partly why you’re so high-strung.”

He wasn’t surprised that Himejima knew, not when it was his kid the one who took the initiative to act against the demons there. Giyuu didn’t answer the question directly, but he did disclose, “those were no normal villains at all, the situation shouldn’t have happened at all, much less with the children to see.”

Himejima nodded, raising his head up to where the moon shone in the night sky. There was something that struck Giyuu with the way Himejima did that. The action was reverent, breathless, awestruck. It made sense, in Giyuu’s mind, that Himejima could see in this new life they both got. Statistically it was practically impossible that the odds lined up that way, but based on his previous knowledge of him his mind automatically made the assumption that it was still blind as he was before. “How sorrowful that such a tranquil night stemmed from said horror,” Himejima wept, “I pray the situation does not last and nights as this can be enjoyed without fear once more.”

Giyuu looked at the moon with Himejima, the distant clouds drifting across the night sky slowly covering it to leave behind the faint glow of the astral body. The silence stretched again, but there was less wariness from the vigilante to the hero. Giyuu wondered if Himejima would recognize his uniform, Kyojuro’s blade, his manner of speaking even though he spoke more than he ever did when demons still lurked.

“Those months ago, when you had said you simply wanted to speak I harbored my doubts, and even now that you have proven such I still wonder why you have not done anything,” Himejima admitted, breaking the silence all of a sudden to comment.

Giyuu scoffed, “I don’t mind vigilantism, so long as people aren’t harmed and excessive violence isn’t used there’s nothing wrong with it in my eyes. Most underground heroes don’t care, the ones that act prissy about it are some limelight heroes.” In all honesty, what he minded the most of the situation was that he’d gone on a wild goose chase for 3—almost 4—years by getting assigned his case; but he wasn’t going to mention that, it would’ve been rude.

“Namu amida butsu… but shouldn’t you be on patrol, if that’s the case?”

“Not really, couldn’t sleep. And weren’t you on patrol just now?”

“I’m still paying attention,” Himejima explained, “tonight it’s unlikely that anything will get past me. Stagnant night, rushing thoughts.”

Rushing thoughts indeed, with demons back Giyuu doubted he’d be able to sleep at night anymore. He’d go back to surviving on naps during the day, as unhealthy as that was, and for the people, for the duty he never should have done again, he would fight and search every night until demons were nothing but a nightmare once more.

“This has certainly been a nice conversation, but I shall get going either way.” Himejima stood up, calloused hand over the hilt of the bokken right where the chains stemmed from. “Better safe than sorry.”

Giyuu nodded, “alright. If you ever decide to do things… legally, just ask for Eraserhead. I can vouch for you.”

“Namu amida butsu, that is very kind of you… I am grateful, for your kind offer,” Himejima wept. And so, he leaped away into the night and Giyuu didn’t bother to chase behind, jumping down and continuing with the forgotten patrol before he arrived home to Kyojuro’s loving arms far too late in the night.

After escorting a couple of drunk men to their homes as it was all he could do for the night so far, Giyuu realized he had never explicitly told Himejima he was, well, him.

The night at the restaurant was slow, slower than usual even. Inko didn’t know why the new manager was so insistent on giving no leeway or nights off when it didn’t come to sick days off, but at least the pay was better than in most places, enough to pay rent and the groceries with enough to spare on Izuku’s supplies.

There still was the normalcy of a group of young adults riddled with insomnia, a college student rushing on an essay with the free WiFi and what was her fifth cup of coffee for the night, an old guy that had come exclusively for an order of fries and a shake before leaving; the works. Inko looked at the dimly lit street in front of the restaurant, no cars, no movement, simply silence.

Inko wanted to be home, resting in front of Izuku’s door to know he was safe and sound. In all honesty, she didn’t want him to go to UA. To put himself at risk with the other students—all of which had incredibly strong quirks compared to her baby boy who had none—even before villains attacked his class. Now? All she wanted to do was convince Izuku that it wasn’t safe, that even though he could he shouldn’t, there were better alternatives for him. His music career was going great! Why couldn’t he just focus on that?

Alarms blared across the walls, from the building to the right of the restaurant: a jewelry store. She sighed, tiredly readying the motions to get everyone to the designated safe area before the heroes or police arrived and someone’s quirk turned the connecting wall into collateral damage. It wasn’t the first time the place was attempted to be robbed in her time working there, and Tokoyami—her coworker, whose son was also from UA and had apparently been part of the attack—exited the kitchen briskly with a nod to help her guide the panicking group outside.

Inko yelled as the wall was blown to bits, raging flames passing through the wall to show a group of obscured people, the thieves. She vaguely registered movement, voices screaming and fading away over a persistent ringing in her ear. The smoke was thick, passed largely above her but still was enough to choke out her breathing to a degree.

Through her blurry vision, she could make out a large figure jump inside the raging destruction to pull her and some other people out of the carnage. Gunshots rang out, the brighter, louder blasts pointed in their direction.

No.

Gods above, please no.

I can’t– I can’t leave Izuku behind!

Just like his dad, never back from work.

“Are you alright?” a deep, rough voice quietly spoke above her once she came to be. They were fairly far from the bright flames, almost all the way down the street. “The police are already fighting against the villains, and an ambulance is coming. Everything will be alright.”

Inko blearily turned back to the man, his blurry figure against the stark clearness of everything else as her senses slowly came back to normalcy. His face was covered by one of those old, traditional straw hats from the pre-quirk era with a white veil. It was a fairly well known garment those days, with that vigilante making his rounds on the news every so often for the past couple of years.

“You’re that vigilante…” Inko murmured. The news always made him sound—how to put it?—much more rough and dangerous. The man bandaging her injuries with gentle care didn’t seem like the kind that would appear on TV after singlehandedly taking down a gang to the ground. There was worry when he spoke, still calm and controlled but undeniably coated with some kind of sadness over them.

The vigilante sighed in relief and nodded, his form slightly shifting together with the movement. Beneath that, she was fairly sure she saw his eyes being a very light color, almost white like Izuku’s. “I am… but it’s good you are well enough to recall that. I must take my leave, but do make sure to stay safe,” he implored, head bowed down before disappearing entirely from sight.

Inko stared dumbfounded at the empty spot in front of her for a while, slowly assimilating the situation as she stood up and walked back to where the other people caught in the situation were. Tokoyami was the first to see her, immediately fretting over her with ruffled feathers, “Midoriya-san! Are you alright? Himejima got us all out but you were still injured…!”

Inko shook her head. “Just a cut in my arm, but I’m all bandaged up now Tokoyami-san. don’t worry about it,” she insisted, downplaying the stinging sensation of the fabric against her raw skin over the pulsing of her rushing veins.

Tokoyami sighed, “that’s good…” Silence stretched on, and the raven-quirked woman eventually proposed, “how about we don’t tell our kids about this?”

“We’re definitely not telling them about this,” Inko resolved.

The police finalized the arrests shortly after, and after some legal processes Inko returned home around 2 in the morning. It was much more early than her usual time, maybe counting as half a shift, but at the very least she could check up on Izuku.

She opened the door to his room to find his bed empty and nobody else anywhere in the apartment.

Her immediate reaction was panic, calling his phone for it to buzz and chime on his bedside table. The second was to trap the room with pots and pans. Why? She didn’t know, but if that kid had—for some ungodly reason that was nothing like him—snuck out while she was away he was getting his books taken away.

And, logically, it would have done more sense a kidnapping of sorts after the events of the day, but Inko wasn’t being logical in that moment. In her mind Izuku was still her sweet, innocent baby boy that for no reason could ever be targeted by the villainous underworld, even if his songs were criticism against the system they lived at, the corruption of the society that had failed him in so many ways.

The pots and pans clattered together loudly, somebody stepping over them without knowing they were there; Izuku.

Ignoring the rushing cat after it was just awoken, Inko burst down the door, angry at her kid for being so… so… stupid! And Irrational! “Izuku Midoriya you better explain…! yourself?”

It was Izuku who was standing there, frozen like a deer in headlights in front of the opened window. Over the strewn kitchenware was a very distinguishable veiled straw hat, and the clothes he was wearing were old and definitely not ones she had ever bought him. He was dressed like the vigilante who had just saved her.

“Mom?” Izuku gasped, teary eyed and cracking voice. “I… I promise there is an explanation for this.”

Inko seethed, glaring Izuku down so hard that even he could notice, “then get to talking young man, you have a lot to explain.”

Gyomei wasn’t sure what he had been thinking when he told his mom everything, gripping down almost painfully at his hakama pants with a pointedly avoidant gaze as he sat on the ledge of his bed. She hadn’t said anything the entire time, through the entire explanation that she must have thought were blatant lies and excuses with nothing to back those up. “Namu amida butsu, I…” Gyomei began to finish, struggling to find the words. “I know how wildly unbelievable my words must be just now, but I plead that you say something–”

“I believe you,” she cut him off, standing up and bringing him close to a hug. “And I’m so, so sorry… you shouldn’t have carried this alone.”

He broke down crying on her shoulder because someone, finally, after every word of his being doubted, believed him without as much of a single piece of concrete evidence. He could be loved, he could be believed, with nothing left to give and nothing left to prove just because he was human and just because he was someone.

Love was unconditional, despite not understanding, despite not knowing, despite secrets kept and memories hidden, it still endured.

“Can you still see me as your son, even now mom?” he faltered, wet voice cracking as despite all his years of living he was only a teenager in his body. Izuku had only lived 14 years so far, and they were the best 14 years he could have ever asked for across both lives. The only thing he could have wished to be different, if he could beg for one thing to change, would be that they lasted longer in peace.

“Don’t you dare say that ever again, you’re my son no matter what, alright honey?” She was crying now too, her tears falling on his back in thick droplets, “it makes no difference to me, you’re still my baby. I just… I just wished you had had the courage to tell me earlier instead of hiding it.”

He mumbled some apologies and stayed there for who knows how long, basking in the feeling of peace and safety of his mother’s arms until his consciousness faded away to a miraculously dreamless slumber.

One good thing from having a rich family was that when they saw the potential for Sanemi’s quirk his parents got him a good, decently sized training room in the house. He didn’t like they got it only because of his quirk, but he didn’t look at the gift horse in its mouth and used it to its maximum potential. Over the span of a few years he had gone through several teachers, all of whom quit when they saw they had nothing to teach him.

He didn’t need to train his quirk that much, not that he did at first, vehemently refusing the ability that was so similar to a blood demon art, but after shoving his pride and disgusting memories into the back of his mind he got a decent hold over it without a weapon and powered his wind breathing with it further.

The training dummies were strewn around haphazardly over the ground, every so often moving back up once more when he striked near them and the quirk-enhanced material mending back together again. It irked him to see them mend, to see them heal. He wanted to tear them to shreds, just like he would with a demon, just like he did with that demon.

Sanemi moved fast, the bokken almost broken and worn down despite it being brand new after spending all night fighting even though his body was about to give out under his rapid movements. More, he gritted his teeth, unleashing the seventh form to ravage the stuffed dummies, you can do more.

Nothing stopped him, not sleep, not exhaustion, not the paranoia that made him hear something knocking nearby. His strikes were strong, like the wind of a tornado or hurricane as it tore everything apart time and time again, never giving up.

“Inasa-nii? When did you wake up…?” Anika asked, his sister of that new life he was so undeserving off. “I never saw you come to sleep either…”

That stopped Sanemi, just for a moment; a quick, stolen glance he swiftly turned away. “I’m fine, go eat breakfast Anika-chan,” he dismissively grunted, continuing on attacking the dummies before his adrenaline faded and he crashed to the ground in exhaustion. He did the ninth form once, then he repeated it time and time again because it was too sloppy.

“That wasn’t what I asked!” she nagged, stomping her foot against the ground. “Did you even sleep last night or were you trying to break the dummies, again?”

Sanemi didn’t listen, repeating his attacks with sloppy movements until at the very least the damage was decent enough to keep him alive against an average demon. Anika used her quirk on him, with far better control than he had on his given that he prioritized his swordsmanship. A small vortex pulled him to her, and while he could have broken out of it normally with one form or another he was so out of it because of everything that happened recently that he couldn’t react on time and as such was captured in place.

“Anika-chan, let me out!”

She cried, “no! You’ll just go on until you are practically dead! Why do you always do this?”

“Because I can’t be a horrible older brother anymore!” he snapped, his free fist balled together and the other clenched so tight that it broke the tsuka of the bokken. He couldn’t fail his sibling again, not after Genya.

He realized what he’d said far too late, Anika worriedly looking at him with wide and teary eyes. “What?” she whispered, but it led to nothing as all the adrenaline that had kept Sanemi standing crashed down in that moment and left him limp in his sister’s vortex.

Shinobu received the wisteria petals gratefully with a sweet smile, her soft expression covering her crude feelings and emotions until she was alone and could let them out. She now understood how unhealthy it was to bottle them up all the time, an even worse poison than the one that quite literally ate her alive just for revenge.

“Hey Chiyo-chan, why do you want wisteria just now?” her older sister asked. Shinobu knew that even though she didn’t remember she was Kanae. Sometimes, as children, she used to tell her about nightmares that were far too similar to their old lives to have been a coincidence but at least this time they could both reach an old age.

She didn’t know why it was only her the one who remembered, but now she had to do something. “Oh it’s nothing much nee-san,” she smiled. “Simply working on a new substance, you know how it is.”

Kanae laughed and gushed, “oh it’s like when we were kids! I remember you always asked me to make wisteria before going to sleep once I got my quirk~”

Shinobu’s smile faltered, breaking apart for just a second. “Nothing but childish whims and fears, but I am certain I can be of help with this now,” she vaguely disclosed, waving away any long winded story of their second childhood together.

“Speaking of wisteria, the UA principal had the strangest request for me… He wants for me to make several wisteria trees grow around campus in such a way they stay in bloom all year long!”

Nedzu, what the fuck? Shinobu internally snapped, questioning the subtlety of the rat.

“Well I can’t say I know why he would ask that, but I was just about to head to my laboratory at UA so I might just ask him if we come to cross paths!” she blatantly lied, knowing full well why the principal had decided to do that.

They talked for a little more, and soon after Kanae left for a brunch with some friends. Shinobu got on her way then, taking an uneventful subway ride to UA. The school was empty, no children running through the halls and no classes being in session. Her sister had already come by to grow wisteria over the ceiling and out in the patio, there was no room from which the bloom was not seen.

Across the large windows lining the hallways, considerably far away, she could see several police cars on site for the USJ incident, the demon incident. The police wouldn’t know, who knew what conclusion they’d arrive to, but it wouldn’t be correct. The problem had been no villain, but rather a demon. She felt it when she arrived, she had been the last hero there due to tending to Iida’s wounds and quirk exhaustion but she still got to feel it and she knew she should’ve arrived earlier to somehow do something.

There were vials and notes strewn around in the small laboratory, locked behind a door in the back of the teacher’s lounge. She wasn’t a teacher, and it was a few ways away from the nurse’s office where she normally was during school hours but in no way would she risk those children in case one of them got too curious; at the very least, if one of the adults got curious there would be no angry phone calls from parents and they would be able to take it.

Shinobu placed the bag of petals on a table, opening one of the drawers to pull out her old notebooks with her old instructions to create wisteria poison. For the next few hours she remade her old creations by following the instructions by the book, still, she knew she could make them better, stronger. Science had advanced, chemistry had progressed, there was new equipment and knowledge than the one she used to apply, and with that she could make more, newer concoctions with ease.

The door didn’t even open yet she still heard the principal’s cheery voice cackle around the room. She sighed through the face mask without turning away from her work, “hello principal Nedzu, to what do I owe the visit?”

With a light thud the chimera jumped out of the vents. “Well hello to you too Shinobu-san! It certainly does not come across as a surprise to see you working so intently on your poisons and I must say, it was undoubtedly valuable your previously shared knowledge to strengthen the defenses of UA in whatever way we can manage thus far.”

“You asked my sister to grow wisteria while there are other people with plant quirks, why was that?” she questioned, passing to the principal some of her notes of common demon physiology for him to read in an instant and absorb the knowledge. “There is an underlying motive for your actions, one you do not bother to hide.”

“Indeed, it is no mystery to myself the truth of your sister even if she is oblivious to it. It was simply a nudge in the right direction. Eventually, with the way things are going, she would come to remember either way,” Nedzu dictated over the sound of the flipping pages of her notes. “Still, this information of yours will prove invaluable, even through the subjective variability from quirks being added into the equation. I'll have to do a large rework to the heroics curriculum to have the children better prepared in case they come across a demon, but I trust that with your guidance they will manage to survive anything they come across.”

Shinobu digressed, “let my sister have a normal life this time around, the knowledge of the past… it is a burden far to heavy to carry, specially now. Same for the children, it is not right for them to be forced to battle the war of centuries past.”

“Yes, of course the children would stay apart from all confrontation until their work studies. It is a preventive measure, and even if it isn’t needed given we find the root of the problem early on and dispose of it the training will prove fructuous in their future. Wouldn’t you agree?” the rat quipped back, climbing over a stool to leave the notebook back on her desk.

She groaned, conceding, “yes well, you do have a point in that regard.”

“As I always do,” the little shit boasted.

“But let’s leave that topic behind instead. What are the police’s theories so far on regards on the attack? Any possible lead as to who created the demon?” she voiced, grinding the last of the petals she had thus far to prepare them for a new method. Perhaps she could crystallize the poison, or make it a gas instead; it would prove much better as a gas in second thought…

Nedzu put on some oversized gloves from her drawer and a pair of lab glasses before disclosing, “so far there is nothing much. The villain whom appeared to be the ringleader of the situation and the mist demon have not been found in the database. The villain most likely has a fake identity and the demon’s quirk must have mutated wildly by becoming a demon as you could have assumed. Still, according to witness reports there was a second demon, once which was defeated with the collective efforts of Eraserhead and 3 of his students by allowing the sunlight in. The accounts they gave all detailed what could be considered as multiple quirks.”

“So they believe it could be All for One? I believed he was dead and not common knowledge,” she mused.

The principal nodded, “indeed! But on accounts of an overheard timeline the demons were a work in progress for over 10 years, and just 5 years ago that villain was proclaimed dead after Toshinori’s battle with him.”

“So it could be possible it was him, you say?”

“Quite so! After all, the man was obsessed with immortality and power over everything. Becoming a demon would certainly make those goals largely achievable.”

“I feared so… As much as I dislike it the best opportunity to destroy him would be to train Toshinori’s successor in breathing styles. He had his eye on that third year boy, correct? Mirio-kun?”

“While he was the reason for him to come to UA, he has apparently laid his eyes upon a first year he has found to have much potential. You recall that green-haired kid from the entrance exam, I assume.”

Ah, yes, how to forget the living likeness of Himejima. Had Shinobu had more evidence on the matter she would dare say he was of a similar situation to Kanae, but without due proof she was not going to assume. In the given case he did remember and the vigilante running on the streets under his name was not someone who had read Tomioka or Uzui’s book, it would have been almost comical to picture him being such.

“A first year?” she questioned, “that sounds doubtfully thought out, even for him.”

“Well not all of his muscles are fully developed as we can see, but as it is he is set on giving the kid One for All,” Nedzu finalized, leaving no room for doubt in what he had noticed.

Tengen played on the guitar to the point his fingers bled from the force he was putting to it. Music was a curse of his, in his mind, because he could replicate anything he heard if he knew how to play the instrument but never create his own melody. He played the tragic battles from demons of their past, biting his lip in concentration to stop thinking about anything else, drown out the noise.

The music was loud, and it was better that way; if all he could focus on was the music then he couldn’t focus on anything else. He wanted to do that all night long, but even when using the electrical instruments plugged in to his earphone jacks it was still loud enough to have been heard by others and gain a visit from his parents telling him to go to bed.

As if he could manage some sleep.

The music was raw, heavy, deafening. It was mourning and passion and flamboyance and fear without needing to use his words. He could listen how his torn and bleeding fingers altered the sound from the chords from the blood dripping down on the strings. He hadn’t even bothered to use a pick, he just wanted to drown everything out.

Listening to music on full volume all night long while training did help, but it wasn’t the same as doing it himself.

Louder.

Faster.

Stronger.

That was everything he needed to be for the others when he stepped apart onto a cushy life.